Whatever's Left
by Wildly Obsessed
Summary: Bumped to M/ Lucas's failed wedding & Haley's demand for a divorce charged through Peyton & Nathan's lives like a forest fire. They salvage what they can from the ashes. The charred remains sow regret & revenge, but is that really all that has been born?
1. Ashes

**Ashes**

Let's burn it all  
Let fire fall  
What's done is done  
_It's in the past_

xXx

Nathan not-so-happily-married Scott was sitting in the gazebo outside of his childhood house. The man had been on his way to the river court but he had stopped when he was in the middle of crossing a street to get there- that place was Lucas's refuge. For most of his life, the gazebo was where he would stalk off when things turned too overwhelming and yet after a few years with his once long-lost brother he had let his own habits be replaced by Lucas's.

The river court wasn't his. Besides, it really was Lucas's safe haven and it was obvious that Lucas would needed that safe haven right now anyways…

It had been barely three days after his brother's bride ran out on her own wedding. Everyone he knew was still running around in a state of panicked chaos.

Lucas had essentially buried himself away from civilization; ripping his hair out in confused anguish and dialling Lindsey non-stop.

Haley was in a frenzy as she ran around

-getting Carrie arrested and putting a restraining order on her,

-making sure her son wasn't absolutely scarred from the kidnapping,

-attempting to politely avoid Dan as she was split between appreciation and apprehension for the man,

-contacting Lindsey who had become her best friend in an effort to comfort and understand the wedding situation,

-hovering around Luke's house in case he stopped hiding and needed her.

Of course, this meant that she was much too frazzled to deal with Nathan's apologetic take-me-back talks. Aside from the brief happy reunion they had when Jamie came back, Haley hadn't spoken to Nathan very much.

That was all well and good; Nathan understood that it was a hectic time. What came as a surprise to him was that his frustration at the state of his marriage was reaching a plateau. He was tired of being so concerned about it. Tired of being pushed away, tired of saying sorry, tired of sleeping in Skillz and Mouth's apartment.

Why did his life have to be so dramatic? He had gone through a good sixteen years with relatively little drama (he was always the most popular kid in his grade, he had money, his parents rarely fought; aside from minor tiffs and a general annoyance at his oppressive dad, his life was golden) only to have a lifetime's worth of melodrama hurled at him in the last few years.

He missed the simpler days when he was a jack ass with the bitchy cheerleader girlfriend, a legion of cronies, and an arrogant attitude that went completely unchallenged because he had the looks and talent to back it up.

He missed the simpler days when he would have burst out in hysterical laughter at the thought of Lucas being ditched at the altar, when he would have screwed Carrie and barely bat an eye when the woman he was committed to found out.

He missed the days when he really did think the world was black and white and all that really mattered was that he did and got what he wanted, screw everyone else.

At his core, Nathan had always been worried that he wouldn't be enough. That was a motivating factor in why he was such a huge bastard back in the day and now that Haley seemed to exploit this fear and prove it correct, Nathan was damn exhausted of being the good guy. He wanted to go back to his old mindset. It was safer.

xXx

Peyton always-going-to-be-a Sawyer (at least it seemed that way at this point), was drained. She knew she was being pathetic and ridiculous, but she had the distinct, crushing feeling that her spluttering of hope that had escaped her after Lindsey left Lucas had been viciously killed.

She had gone to his house the evening it happened. She had found him sitting on the floor, staring at the ceiling with a phone in his hands.

Before she could even ask if he was okay, he had shut his eyes and croakily asked her to leave. His tone was forcibly civil. She had said his name, confused, and his jaw had clenched angrily as he repeated his words with a lot more anger- no longer making it a request. She had turned to retreat out the door and he had whispered venomous words to her back- _this is what you wanted, wasn't it?_

She had stopped cold in her tracks, her blood freezing at the thought of him actually believing that.

Before she could say anything, he looked at her fiercely and grabbed a pile of papers lying nearby.

This is my next novel, he said.

Seizing a lighter from his drawer, he met her eyes with a cold fury she had never seen before and lit the whole thing on fire. Peyton cried out a _No! _that came too late.

She left because of this, he had said. She thought it was about you. _She left because of you_.

There was a level of accusation in his voice that wrapped itself around her throat and squeezed, making her breath catch.

She insisted I still wanted you, he murmured. His eyes were trained on the flames. _I know why you came. You thought she was right. _His voice was metallic. _You _hoped _she was right._

Looking at her again, he didn't react at all to her expression of pure pain. This is what you wanted, wasn't it?

_Not like this. _She had whispered, her eyes filling with tears. _I never wanted this._

Liar, he shook his head.

I wanted _you _to leave _her_, Lucas.

There isn't going to be any riding away in the sunset, he had said. I know you came here for that, but it won't happen.

I came to see if you were okay, she said quietly. _It had _**never**_ been about me, Lucas, never. _

Her eyes were overflowing with tears she couldn't stop. Whirling around, the girl fled; her choked sobs echoing into the night, her hurt clouding the atmosphere in the room long after she left.

That morning, Peyton had gathered the courage to talk to Lucas again. This time she had found him at the river court, stubble coating his jaw, hair rumpled, eyes haunted.

He glanced at her and her courage wilted away. Grinding her teeth together, she forced herself to stand her ground.

His tone was soft this time; emotion spent: I really need to be alone.

_You want to know what I wanted?_ Peyton asked, trying hard to keep her voice steady. _When the priest asked you if you would take her to be yours forever, I wanted you to look at me and look at her and say no, no you couldn't. Instead of I Do, I wanted you to say I Can't._

Yelling internally at her tear ducts to remain dry, she said, _I wanted you to realize you wanted _me. _I didn't simply want you not to get married; I wanted you not to get married because _you_ chose not to._

_I know you're in pain, and you won't be able to understand how sorry I am for that, but you don't get to accuse me of wanting this. Of blaming me. You want to know what I wanted? Do you? _I wanted you to marry Lindsey if that's what you wanted_. The only scenario I wanted where that wedding didn't happen was if _you_ walked away. I wanted you happy. _

_You want to know why I went to your house that night? I went there to see if you were holding up. I was worried about you. I went there prepared to call Lindsey up and telling her that she had read wrong, that you and me were never ever going to be together again. _That I was leaving town_ and that she really should come back because you needed her and no one else. _

_If you can't believe that, I'll let you on a trip down memory lane. I did that for you and Brooke, when you claimed she was the only one for you; that you needed her. I did everything in my power to get you back with her, and I would have done that again for you and Lindsey in a heartbeat. _

_But Brooke wasn't the one for you. You changed your mind in a few weeks. _

_Maybe Lindsey wasn't the one for you, either._

_All I really know for sure after all of this is that you went for Brooke and Lindsey so damn determinedly because you really, really don't want _me_ to be the one for you._

Her resolve was officially cracking, along with her voice. She was going to cry again soon and she absolutely did not want him to see that.

Lucas was looking at her as though he had been slapped and as she walked away, his eyes melted into a pool of regret and concern for her. His head was far too muddled to sort out the mixed up feelings and thoughts circling inside of him, all he knew was that the taste of remorse was growing stronger and stronger.

xXx

Peyton couldn't go back home. Brooke was home and as much as she loved Brooke, she couldn't make her pick up her broken pieces again. She had already soothed her so much, Peyton didn't want to become a burden. She couldn't go to the bridge for that very same reason.

She ended up at the same place she used to run to, once upon a time. The Scott manor's gazebo.

"Nathan." Peyton was startled to see him there. "What are you doing here?"

"This _was my_ gazebo. What are you doing here?" He asked back, equally startled.

Their eyes met, the pain in them equivalent, and they realized they really didn't have to answer the question.

"Lucas blames me for Lindsey leaving." Peyton said matter-of-factly as she slumped next to her friend.

"I'm sure that's not-"

"He as good as told me so."

"Oh." Nathan blinked. "Well Haley's been running around doing things for everyone else in what I think is an attempt to avoid me."

"I'm sure she's not-"

"I got divorce papers in the mail ten minutes ago."

"Oh." Peyton blinked.

"I'm sorry-" they said simultaneously.

Chuckling slightly, Peyton said, "You know, everyone used to say how bad and destructive we were together but we were never as hurt back then when we were together as we are right now from Haley and Lucas."

"That's true." Nathan grinned sardonically. "Maybe we just really suck at relationships in general."

"Haley will take you back, Nathan. You have to believe that."

"Sure. And Lucas will show up at your doorstep tonight with a bouquet of roses and a sappy speech declaring that he wants to ride off into the sunset with you." Nathan snorted.

Peyton winced.

"God, I'm sorry." Nathan instantly said. "I really didn't mean that. You and Lucas have always been meant for each other, he's just-"

"It's okay." Peyton shook her head. "You're right. It's not happening. It's just that Lucas used the same sarcastic phrase." Letting out a hollow laugh, she said, "You know, I thought Lindsey was the only thing keeping him from me. I was so sure. But I was wrong. Maybe he didn't really want her, maybe he did. It doesn't matter. What's important is that he doesn't want me."

"Peyton-"

"It's true." Peyton nodded, her eyes doing that watering up thing again but she hid it well.

"Haley told me she was wrong to try to change me." Nathan said softly. "So I'm gonna take a stab and say that it was never me she wanted, it was the fixed-up version of me she hoped she could turn me into."

Peyton's calm mask broke and her face crumpled.

"Holy crap," Nathan choked out in alarm when he noticed she was crying. He awkwardly patted her back.

"Haven't you ever seen a crying girl before?" Peyton tried to laugh.

"Not a crying you."

"Really? Several months of dating and years of friendship and never?"

"No!"

Laughing for real now, she said, "Don't panic, Nate- I'm not broken or anything."

"You never let me see the vulnerable side, only the mouthy one." Nathan said, "This is uncharted territory for me."

"I'm sorry, life just sucks right now, I shouldn't be putting this on you-"

"No, no it's okay." Nathan's voice became even more alarmed as Peyton stood up to leave. "You definitely don't have to go."

"I don't know what to do anymore, Nathan," Peyton whispered as she covered her face with her hands.

"Hey, hey, come here. None us really do. Everything will be okay." She fell into his shoulder and he tried to believe his own words.

The two sat there for what felt like an infinite amount of time.

The tears were drowning her eyes as Peyton whispered brokenly, "I wish we were sixteen again."

Nathan looked like he was going to argue about how that wasn't true, but Peyton wasn't finished. "I wish we were early sixteen. When I only had one dead mom, one love interest. When the biggest fight I'd get into with my best friend would be over cheerleading practice or music taste." She was sobbing. "It was so much simpler back then."

"Life isn't supposed to be easy. And you don't have it nearly as bad as you could."

"Okay, Nathan, there are times that call for being tough and there are times that I really just need somebody hugging me and telling me my life does suck but it'll be better and I'll get my happy ending." Her voice was resentful and she took her head off his shoulder.

Matching the formation of a fresh fight, the clouds that had been present all day decided now to break into a rainstorm.

"Lucas might have done all that." Nathan shrugged. "But obviously, he's not here with you right now." He stood up to retreat further into the gazebo to avoid the rain, but Peyton grabbed his arm to stop him.

"You're such an ass."

"My wife sent me divorce papers. I'm sorry if I'm being less than sympathetic about the fact that the guy you declined a marriage proposal from is now into another woman two years later."

"You've always been so self-absorbed. Guess that hasn't changed."

"I'll say the same for you." He glared. "And you were the one that wanted to be sixteen again. Looks like you're getting some of your wish right now with this ridiculous argument."

"Well I'm hurting and I'm lonely and everything sucks and you're being so damn insensitive right now it's almost funny!"

"Your make-up is totally ruined."

"Gee, thanks."

"No, I'm just saying. Your make-up is totally ruined, you have that ball-breaker expression on your face that twists everything into a scary mess of anger, and you still manage to look kinda hot." Nathan smirked. "Random observation."

"You are so never going to have sex again with anyone." Peyton rolled her eyes, rubbing her face self-consciously.

"Says the girl who probably hasn't been with anyone since Lucas broke up with you."

For some reason, this triggered a new eruption of tears from Peyton.

"…Oh, fuck." Nathan muttered, once again alarmed. "Don't cry, c'mon." He watched her anxiously and started rambling when it became clear she wasn't stopping. "Look, I'm just being defensive and deflecting the focus on you because it's easier to do that, okay? It's easier to look at the drama circus that is your love life than look at the train wreck that mine is. You're a lot better off than me, you know? You're in so much damn pain because you really do love him. Me, I'm done loving her. And I hate myself so much for wanting to give up."

"I've given up too." Peyton sniffed. "And now I'm cold and I probably look like a drowned rat."

"A drowned malnourished rat. You really have to eat more, Sawyer." Nathan commented, encircling his fingers around her wrist with disapproval.

Peyton shook her head and stood up. She looked at the sky and the raindrops and the total pathetic sphere that was her life. "I'm going to start over." She looked at Nathan. "And you should too."

"…The rain is really making your shirt pretty see-through."

"Trust you to notice," Peyton laughed and looked down at herself.

He stood up to stand beside her, his eyes unreadable.

"Nathan, why are you staring at me like that?"

"You really do look hot right now." His hand found its way to her waist, the touch so light she could barely feel it.

"What are you-?"

"You want to start over right?" His eyes never looked away from hers as he bent down and crushed his lips over hers with a ferocity that he had never used with Haley and that she had never felt with Lucas. They were done with tenderness; the fire had returned to burn through the wreckage and waste of their brokenness to restore a new life, a different life.

Like the birth of new plants after forest fire destruction, this wasn't their first choice. It wasn't a choice at all. It was what instinct did to preserve survival, what their nature did to drag something out of the death of their hopes with other people.

Nathan's hands peeled away the edge of the fabric that was stuck to her skin and his fingers traced up her back; Peyton's hand hooked itself in the belt loop of his jeans, connecting them from the waist down like the way she used to do once upon a time.

"_Let's be sixteen again." _

* * *

**AN: **I'm anticipating some rather angry reviews from this but I had this huge need to channel all the angst and anger of s5 relationships into a fic before the new episodes start up again. Rest assured, this is never going to happen on the show :P

ETA: Also, yes this is most definitely a chapter fic :). And after the extreme fury I feel as a leyton fangirl after 5.13 you can expect an update fairly soon.


	2. Rebirthing

**Rebirthing **

I lie here paralytic inside this soul  
I wanna break out  
I need a way out  
_I don't believe that its gotta be this way_

xXx

Peyton's breath caught in her throat as she felt her spine tingle with sensation at the feeling of Nathan's fingers dancing across her back. The two had quickly dispensed with her shirt and made their way into the house, crashing onto a couch near the back door. His lips were pressing against her neck and down to the skin surrounding her bra as his thumb slipped under the thin material, pressing sensually. She was melded against him, her hands digging into his shoulders as she waited for him to progress further.

His fingers slipped deeper and deeper under her bra until he was holding her breast in his hand completely. Letting out a short sigh, Peyton reached for the front of his shirt and pulled his face up to hers so she could crush her lips against his. He undid her bra, pushing away the straps and throwing the material to the side carelessly. He tore his lips from hers so he could shift his mouth to her chest while his hands caressed her stomach.

She clenched her teeth at the touch of his tongue. Sliding her hands under the shirt he was still wearing, she pushed impatiently at the material until Nathan broke away from her for a split second to lift the shirt over his head.

He palmed her breasts as she undid his jeans. Without a trace of hesitation she slipped her fingers inside the unzipped material and cupped him with only the thin thread of his boxers preventing her from touching skin. Sitting up straight, Peyton nudged him backwards and fell into a straddle against his lap. She decorated his skin with kisses from his lips to his jaw to his neck before sliding down his body slowly to reach his chest and over his waist. She pulled at his pants until they were around his ankles and reached for his boxers to do the same.

He stopped her hands and quickly bent down to kick off his shoes and pants, a moan escaping his mouth when her hands found his bare cock and started rubbing. Roughly, Nathan gripped her shoulder and pushed her down, reversing their positions as he pulled off her pants. His hands slipped under her panties and just as confidently as she had, he pressed his fingers against her and in her.

He pumped two fingers into her, coaxingly kissing her throat, when she shook her head. "Don't." Meeting his eyes levelly, she said, "Just do it. Now."

"You're ready?" Mild surprise was in his tone as he raised his eyebrows.

"God yes."

He obliged. Pulling off her panties, he kissed her hard across the mouth and entered her with a startling force. Their sexual history together had lasted long enough that he understood what it was she wanted and how that changed according to her mood. This wasn't the time for teasing or warming up. This wasn't the time for tantalizing foreplay. They both needed a fast release and he bucked into her with an urgency he knew she shared and desired.

Nathan pulled out abruptly.

"No," she protested.

"I don't have a condom." He stated breathlessly in explanation, preparing to stand up.

"No." She repeated; a desperate desire thick in her voice. She pulled at his hand. "I'm on the pill." Pushing him back down onto the couch, she breathed, "I want you to finish in me." Without warning she climbed on top of him and slid herself into him. Arching back, she moaned in pleasure and shifted herself up and down, back and forth; her fingernails digging marks against his chest.

Nathan's eyes were open as he watched her breasts shake over his face, the nipples hardened from arousal and her face a picture of ecstasy. His own eyes clouded over and his hands gripped the sides of her ass as with one guttural grunt of her name he came inside her.

xXx

Peyton relaxed against Nathan's form. The mind blanking bliss that sex always gifted her with was slowly fading away. As she lay on top of him, the full impact of what she had just done sunk into her consciousness.

There was no post-coital cuddling. Peyton had snatched up her clothes and shoved her pants back on before the two had even managed to catch their breaths.

"Are you okay?" Nathan asked, sitting up on the couch and completely not caring about his own state of total undress.

She wasn't really. She turned to him quickly to flash a reassuring smile but he recognized the guarded look in her eyes and his expression told her that it wasn't worth the effort to lie. "I'm just a hypocrite, that's all." Peyton half shrugged. She couldn't look at him. Turning on her heel, she started to walk towards the door.

"Peyton!" His voice was exasperated. Leaping forward, he took her wrist and stared at her expectantly to elaborate.

"I was so, so mad at Lucas when I found out he slept with Nikki right after I broke up with him; I told him I couldn't imagine sleeping with someone when I was such an emotional head case." Self-loathing ran rampant across her face.

"You're comparing me to '_bar slut' _now?" Nathan grinned, amused. At the glare on Peyton's face, he sobered up. "Okay, first of all? I'm not some random stranger you just met- I've known you longer than Lucas has, for chrissake, and this is hardly the first time we've slept together. Also- I'm not the psychotic absentee parent of a friend of yours."

This was the wrong thing to say. "Oh God…" Peyton shut her eyes, far from being comforted. "But you are the father of a kid of a friend of mine."

"Jamie has nothing to do with this." Nathan placed his hands on both her shoulders. "I just got divorce papers sent to me; you've just been pushed away for the fiftieth time from the guy who is still trying to get his ex-fiancée to be his wife. This isn't cheating. This isn't some horrible act."

"But we can't just 'start over' with _each other_!" Peyton protested. "Moving on is good but could we chosen a worst way to do it?"

"Could we have chosen a better way?" Nathan fired back. "I'd rather move on with an old friend, with a woman I've been with before, than go through the excruciation of meeting someone new. You know my story. You know my situation. We cut through all the bullshit."

"You're talking as though we're starting a relationship."

"Do you want this to be just sex?"

"We had sex once. That doesn't mean we'll do it continually-"

Nathan looked at her. His eyes were smouldering and fierce and oh yeah, he was still naked.

Peyton cut herself off, knowing instantaneously that her words were futile. She looked at him, took in all the small ways his body had changed and aged in the past six years, and couldn't help but think that he had only gotten better looking. The years had done nothing to dull his memory of her; he had known just where to touch and just how much force to use. Their bodies were still attuned.

"So this doesn't feel wrong to you?"

"The last three people I have had sex with are you, Haley, and you." Nathan said. "It's kind of full-circle."

"Did you forget?" She whispered. "When we were…Did you forget everything too?"

"Yeah."

"It felt… I haven't been able to forget. Every waking moment I've been thinking about it. Except for when I'm with you." At her words, his expression changed minutely and it became the slightest bit softer. He cupped her face and kissed her with the same electric charge she had felt the first time he did that a half hour ago. She fell against him and together they toppled gracelessly back onto the couch.

Her hands glided across his shoulders and down his chest, rubbing tiny circles across his pecks as she had once done so habitually. She did it without thinking and continued doing it almost absently even as they broke from their kiss. He left his arm casually hanging around her shoulders and it really did feel like it used to for that one moment in time.

She watched her hands stroking his skin as though she was a third-person observer. "You don't wear your nipple ring anymore." Peyton smiled slightly at the realization.

"Haley didn't like it that much." Nathan replied. And just like that, the moment of sameness ended. They were not sixteen anymore. They never could be again.

The mention of her name made Peyton freeze; her hand jerked back from his chest as though it burned her. And again, past events floated through her mind as she remembered back to the morning in the hotel room where she and Lucas almost had sex- the only thing that stopped them had been Brooke's necklace still attached to Lucas's neck. Was she forever doomed to have illicit acts jarred with guilt in the jewellery the man wore?

Nathan put his hand over hers and lowered it back to his chest. "Don't stop. That's always felt good." He didn't seem to care about the mentioning of his (ex-?) wife.

Peyton realized with a shock that if it had been Nathan she was with at that hotel room years ago, Nathan wouldn't have stopped. He would have unclasped the necklace and the two would have fucked. Nathan wasn't Lucas.

That was unfair, Peyton's brain argued. Nathan now wasn't Nathan then. Nathan now wasn't in a relationship. And even Nathan then hadn't ever actually cheated on her; he had slept with plenty of girls in the time between when they officially started dating and when they broke up for good but he had only done it during their break-up technicalities. He had never slept with a girl if Peyton hadn't told him that they were over. This didn't exactly make him Captain Loyal since he knew the two would make up quickly, but it hardly made him a jack ass cheater either. In fact, he was better than Lucas was really in that respect- he had never cheated on any of his girls behind their backs. Peyton had always been fully aware that he would hook up with woman in the nights she broke things off with him.

The girl broke away from Nathan's loose grip on her and she darted into the washroom, desperately splashing water on her face. She didn't know what she was trying to do. Wake up from her life, perhaps.

Nathan appeared behind her and at first she thought he was there to try to have sex with her again, distract her from the morality issues in her head. But he wasn't that guy anymore. His expression was pure contrition; he looked tortured.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" Peyton frowned.

"Did I pressure you? Did you- were you not-?"

"You didn't make me do anything." Peyton shook her head, thoroughly amused at the suggestion. "As I recall, I'm the one who took off your pants." She met the eyes of his reflection. "And I wouldn't let you pull away."

"You just- you don't seem okay."

"How are you okay?"

"I can't be that guy anymore, Peyton." Nathan whispered, his voice a mixture of agony and pleading. "I can't be that guy Haley tried to make me into. The God on a pedestal who couldn't make mistakes. But I'm too far gone from the guy I was when I was with you to ever go back to the only other guy I know how to be. I don't know who I am anymore. I think you're not okay because you know who you are. You know what kind of things you should or shouldn't do to keep in line with who you are. You have this strong sense of self that I can't help but envy. I'm okay because I don't know who I am when I'm not Haley's husband or Lucas's brother or Star of the Tree Hill Ravens. If I don't know who I am, I can't feel like I'm betraying myself. I can't feel like I'm doing wrong.

"But I've made you feel like you have. And I'm sorry. We can pretend like this never happened, if that's what you really want. But I don't regret this. It made me forget, too. It made me forget and it made me feel something aside from self-loathing. 'Cause when I was in you? I wasn't thinking that I was cheating or that it was wrong or that we should stop. I was thinking about you, only you, and how damn different it was in a good way all this was. And just talking to you I'm remembering more of who I am. When I'm with Lucas, I'm the brother, like I said. When I'm with Skillz I'm the friend; with anyone else I'm the coach or the patient or the whatever. With you, I'm Nathan Scott. I'm not the guy you just slept with, I'm not in any set role. I'm not your friend, I'm not your ex, I'm just me. I never, ever get to feel like that anymore.

"That's why I'm okay."

Peyton's eyes were still fixed on his eyes through the mirror, at the pure sincerity of his expression and the raw honesty in his words. And she took a step back silently so she was touching him and she took his hand and placed it around her waist, rubbing his arm soothingly. She leaned into his chest and felt her eyes water at the purity of his words, at the beauty of the sentiment.

He wasn't Lucas but right now, that was the very best thing she could ask for. Unlike Lucas's flowery language, she knew that Nathan didn't often go into bouts of declaring his real feelings and he definitely didn't make proclamations of affection easily. Unlike Lucas, Nathan hadn't said these very same words to several different girls. And for this reason, Peyton felt safe. Nathan's words still meant something. They hadn't been corrupted with overuse or flightiness.

Wordlessly still, Peyton wrapped her hand over Nathan's and led it slowly to her lips. She kissed his palm and just as slowly led it back downwards from her waist, closing her eyes as his fingers dipped under her jeans.

"This can't be like it was." Peyton said, opening her eyes again at their reflections in the mirror.

"It can never be like it was." Nathan lowly answered in affirmation.

His hand was over her centre, rubbing her lightly because he knew she wanted him to, and they both exhaled a sharp breath as though they were one being. Peyton leaned into him further, pressing against the growing tightening in his pants. They couldn't take their eyes off the mirror, couldn't stop watching their doppelgangers. It was like they were watching other people. It wasn't them doing this. It wasn't them. In a way, they were right. Everything had changed. They weren't who they were and they never could be again.

Their lips met crushingly, their hands ripping away at their clothes. Every movement was in unison as he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him; as she arched her back so he could bury his lips in her breasts; as he rocked her against the bathroom counter and she flung her hands out to grip the edge of the marble, their frantic motions sending items crashing in brokenness; as she left deep scratches in his back and he left sharp bite marks across her shoulders.

Insecurity would creep back up to them when the act was over and clothes once again put on.

"So, _is_ this just about sex then?" Nathan would ask, his tone forcibly casual though his eyes startlingly intense.

"It's never been just about sex." Peyton smiled slightly, watching him again through the mirror. "Nathan, even when we said it was just about sex when we were sixteen it wasn't just about sex."

Behind her, Nathan smiled boyishly, pleased.

xXx

Later that day, she would see Lucas and the two would exchange a look of pain.

He would see Haley and she would look anguished, flustered.

Peyton would shut her eyes. Nathan would shut his eyes.

They would find themselves around the corner, breathing unsteadily, their expressions unstable and deeply sad. They would look at each other and know at their core that no one could possibly understand them more than they did each other. Their heartbreak was so mutual it connected them deeper than the pain or the sex or the insecurity or the question of wrongness. She would fall into his open arms and he would hold her tightly as salty tears escaped down both their cheeks.

He would kiss her needily and she would urge his hands towards the waistband of her pants again, both ever so desperate to forget.

But he would not let her escape this time, run away like some scared Other Woman running after a meaningless tryst. She would not try. They would hold each other again; the sex an extension of the basic comfort of touch and companionship and understanding. She was not the Other Woman, he was not the Friends with Benefits and this was not meaningless or dirty or immoral.

He would never let her run away after sex again but both of them knew that neither would they go laughing down the street, hand in hand. He was not her boyfriend, she was not his lover.

What they made was not love, what they did was not sleep together. There was no romance; it was grief and longing and need. It could be tender, it could be sweet; it was always honest and sometimes selfish but was not what she sought from Lucas it was not what he had with Haley.

It was not love, it was not fucking… This was far beyond friendship but not anything like any relationship either had ever known. This was not simple and this was not a game, this was not a fling and this meant more than anyone could have possibly guessed.

"What is this?" Peyton would ask him as he held her in the alley around the corner.

"This is starting over in the only way we know how. This is us. This is now."

_Tell me when I'm gonna live again  
Tell me when I'm gonna breathe you in  
Tell me when I'm gonna feel inside  
Tell me when I'm gonna feel alive  
_

Now.

* * *

**AN: **Wow, I'm surprised at the lack of NP backlash haha. I guess the extreme grrr after my last pathan fic (which was platonic!) had me expecting more of the same. I'm glad I was wrong :) You guys are awesome, I'm pleased you're interested. Also, LVRofTristan, I have the next bit of Dark Blue started so don't worry I won't forget about my trories haha, Tristan will not be ignored ;)

How amusing is it that Naley have already made up on the show? And how nonsurprising but absolutely disappointing is it that Lucas being the idiot-asshat that he is, is still all LINDSEY IS FOR ME!!1! I won't even get into how mad I was at him for that. He's pissed at Peyton beyond reconciliation for saying she wants to marry him someday ('you said no! when a man proposes, don't say no!') and yet he's still all loving and open when Lindsey LEAVES HIM AT THE FRICKIN ALTAR in front of EVERYONE! Why is Mark making Lucas such a dense, illogical jerkface? /rant :P


	3. Bubble Land

**Meet Me in Bubble Land**

_I've been dreaming dreams of childhood, _

_And the games we used to play, _

_When my heart knew only sunshine_

_Now I know my constant dreaming,_

_Always takes me back to yesterday; _

_If your heart is yearning,_

_Join me in returning, come, and I will show you the way_

**xXx**

Peyton and Nathan don't do anything conventionally. They started dating after he asked her to dance at the year-end dance in freshman year (he had gone with a gorgeous redhead who was stoned out of her mind and passed out in the back of her car at the moment, her date was a random member of the football team she didn't know well who was making a drunken pass on some girl near the spiked punch). It was (naturally) a slow song and Peyton could feel her skin tingle at the soft touch of his fingers around her waist. She had looked up at him and smiled and his face lit up under the soft ambience of the tissue paper tinted lights overhead.

The two had spoken before casually, nothing more than small talk and a brief joke now and then.

He didn't cop a feel like he might have done with another girl, she didn't count the seconds til the song was over like she would have with another guy. The song ended and the two slowly stopped swaying. He had smiled again, tucked away a stray curl, and lowly breathed in her ear that she looked beautiful.

She had gone back to her date, he had gone to check on his. And for the next two weeks, he would feel her eyes on him as he practiced basketball and she could just catch him looking away with a tiny smile on his face any time Whitey let the guys take a break. Brooke would say they were having nonstop eye sex.

One day, Peyton had forgotten her cheerleading shorts on the bleachers. When she ran back for them, Nathan was holding it expectantly. She had walked up to him to take it from him and as he leaned forward to hand it to her, he had impulsively kissed her.

"By the way," He would say as he was already a few feet away from her, smiling at the slightly bemused look on her face, "It'd make me way more enthusiastic if you didn't wear these. While playing, I mean."

"Playing basketball, of course." She would raise an eyebrow in amusement.

"That. And anything else you'd be up for playing with me." He answered teasingly. Eye sex, eye sex, eye sex…

"Playing is kind of a broad term. After all, do people our age actually still play?" Identical smirks on both their faces.

"Yeah? Well what you suggest we do then, Sawyer?"

_Each other. _Hooking her fingers around his shirt before he could do anything else, she would press her lips against his and say that this was two weeks in the making.

xXx

Peyton's legs were dangling over the edge of Nathan's beach house bed when he wandered in that evening.

"I could get used to this." Nathan smirked.

"Hey, don't think I was waiting for you or anything." Peyton answered, her voice muffled by the pen in her mouth. "I'm working on more promotional stuff for Mia's album."

"In my bed."

"It's comfortable." She shrugged playfully.

He raised his eyebrows, "Well isn't that big shot L.A. company taking care of all that anyways?"

"Please. Mia is an individual. Like I'd let them try to play off her sound like it's cookie-cutter crap. I'm making sure it's innovative."

Nathan shook his head and fell into the bed beside her, extracting the pen from her mouth. "Peyton."

"What?" She was still flipping through the papers laid across the foot of the bed.

"I'm horny."

This made her look up. "Were you this sex-crazed with Haley?"

"Maybe I just like sex with you better." His hands had found her waist, his lips settling against her neck.

"Just like old times." Peyton chuckled as she let herself be pushed back on the bed, obliging his kisses.

The two had existed in an oddly utopian state of contentment in the last few days, brought on by isolating themselves from everyone else. This didn't seem to be hard to do since Haley was avoiding Nathan anyways and had already worked out a system so the two of them could have equal time with Jamie without having to be in the same room with each other for any amount of time.

Peyton hadn't told Nathan this, but avoiding Lucas had been more difficult. In the few moments the two had found themselves in the same place, he had opened his mouth and started to make his way over to her. She managed to duck away each time and was stoutly refusing to think about why he wanted to talk to her and what he would say. It didn't matter. He didn't matter.

This wasn't exactly healthy. Somewhere in the haze of bleary cheerfulness, they had to know that they were only happy because they had holed themselves up in denial of reality and of the real world. In their minds, they just didn't care. They were tired of the anguish and desperately needed a reprieve.

Brooke was getting worried about Peyton's constant absences since the beach house was the only place Nathan and Peyton felt secure in meeting up and neither had told any one about their recent activities.

"_Where do you keep disappearing? You're not at your office, or Tric. Mia's barely spoken to you so you're not holed up working…" _

"_Don't worry about it, Brooke."_

"_I am worrying, Peyton. Because Lucas was a really, really huge ass and ever since I've barely seen you."_

"_I'm fine, I promise."_

"_That's the thing- you seem happier than you have in a while. I just wish you'd let me in."_

"Nate, when are we gonna tell people about this?" Peyton asked quietly as she pulled her shirt back on.

"Well I don't know how close you are with _your_ friends, but I wasn't planning on outlining_ this _to anyone anytime soon." Nathan smirked, gliding his hand up her thigh.

The look she gave him wiped the smirk right off.

"I don't know, Peyt. I don't want to just… blurt it out. And hell we don't even know what we are right now. So what, we just gather everyone together and say 'hey everyone, Peyton and I are fucking. A lot.'?"

"I get that. I do. But I hate keeping things from Brooke, and it feels like we're hiding. And people only hide when they're doing something wrong. When they're ashamed."

"No, people hide 'cause it's fun." Peyton smacked his arm that time. "Ow! Sorry, sorry. Come on, you can't honestly think I'm ashamed of you."

"Maybe not of me. Of us. We've been having sex like rabbits and have been since the day you got your annulment papers. That would look pretty bad…"

"Do I ever care about how I look?"

Her eyebrows raised, "I'm going to assume that's a rhetorical question, Nathan-but-my-reputation's-on-the-line-Scott."

"Hey. I'm different now. And I say screw 'em if they have a problem with this because I haven't felt this good in months."

"Me too." She wanted to ask if this was just a big distraction, if it really meant nothing…but that would make her vulnerable and she just couldn't open herself up again.

"I'm really glad I'm with you. There's no one else I can think of that I'd rather be with." Nathan murmured as he slipped his hand over hers. "But I just don't want to do that to-"

"Haley."

"-Lucas."

Peyton looked startled. "You actually think Lucas would care-?"

Nate looked hurt for just a moment. "Peyton, do you care if Lucas cares?"

Locking away the part of her that fluttered every time Lucas was mentioned, Peyton hooked her arm around his neck and kissed him deeply. "Screw 'em."

xXx

"Are you avoiding me?"

Peyton froze. In all honesty she had been slinking away with a handful of albums with the intention of slipping past Brooke unseen.

"I'm sorry." Peyton shrugged guiltily.

"What have you been doing?" The brunette pleaded. "Come on sweetie, you can tell me. It's _me_." Sliding around to take her wrists, Brooke continued, "Have you been bar hopping? You're out a lot of nights now. I mean, God knows I've done the whole random hook up thing…but it doesn't really help in the long run and I know you know that."

"That hasn't been what I've been doing." Peyton laughed.

"Well, there is a boy toy in the picture, isn't there?" The words triggered a small smirk from Peyton that she tried very hard to hide. The boy toy auction night back in high school had resulted in a bit of line-blurring between Nathan and herself and that had been the last night she had kissed him before their new…thing…now.

"Why would you assume that?"

Brooke raised her eyebrow, "When you do happen to be around, you spend half your time whispering lowly behind closed doors so either you're plotting to kill me, talking to yourself, or you're having a whole clandestine guy thing." Smirking, she crossed her arms. "Now, I'm far too pretty to be whacked so unless you want to tell me you're hearing voices in your head…?"

"I hate that I'm keeping things from you." Peyton relented, shoulders slumping.

"Oh none of that, you know I'll support whatever you're doing. Just spill the juice already P Sawyer."

Shaking her head helplessly, Peyton bit her lip. "I can't. Not yet."

Narrowing her eyes quickly, Brooke blurted, "It's not Chase, is it?"

"No!" Peyton laughed.

"Good. Then I pledge my support. Unless it's a heroin addicted hobo."

"It's not."

"Fine, I'll just have to snoop around."

She snorted, "Yeah, because you haven't already."

"You've known me too long." Brooke grinned cheekily.

xXx

Craving a drink, Peyton popped into Tric on her way back from picking up music at her and Brooke's place. It wasn't until she was already leaning against the bar and sipping a screw driver that she noticed Lucas sitting two stools down from her, sunglasses covering his eyes and his entire body slouched towards the upturned shot glasses in front of him.

Feeling a familiar twist of anxiety in her stomach, the blonde hastily looked away and drank faster. Shaking her head with a forced smile at Owen at the offer of a refill, she snatched her purse and tried to make a quick exit.

"Peyton."

Hearing him say her name still debilitated her. She stopped in her tracks and felt anguish and hope combating each other for dominance in her hollow chest.

_Don't look back, don't go back, don't turn around, don't talk to him, don't smile, don't acknowledge him, don't, don't, don't…_

Lucas's voice sounded strained and she could picture his eyes crinkling at the sides softly even though her back was to him and his eyes were obscured.

His voice sounded like freezing water sliding down her throat after a two mile run.

His voice was like rain falling against parched land.

His voice was soft fingers across the back of her neck, nose buried in her hair with just a faint whispering of _It's you, Peyton_.

She shut her eyes, swallowed unsteadily and walked away.

Ignoring the hundreds of questions that instantly started whispering insecurely inside her head, she all but ran for her car.

Peyton was breathless by the time she lurched back into the Scott beach house.

Throwing her purse at the first chair she saw, Peyton's eyes darted around the house until her ears picked up faint noise. Walking purposefully towards the noise, one hand loosed her hair from the pins holding it in place. Kicking off her shoes, she opened the door to the bathroom and unbuttoned her blouse.

She slid open the shower door, sending the person inside it jerking backwards.

"Holy crap, Peyt, you scared the shit out of me!" Nathan said, trying to avoid swallowing the water pouring down from the faucet. Peyton slipped out of her skirt without answering. He glanced at her, frowning. "What-"

Undoing her bra, she walked into the water without so much as a hello and pulled him close.

"I know you're hot for me but this is getting almost ridiculous," Nathan joked as he leaned back from the kiss. Smoothing back her hair, his eyes glanced over every inch of her bare body and his hands followed his eyes.

"You want me, right?"

Her voice was shaking and though in another time Nathan would not have noticed, he did this time. "…Are you okay?"

"What are we, please. What are we?"

"I told you, I don't know." The frantic note in her voice worried him.

"But you want to be with me?"

"Of course."

"You want me."

"Yeah, I want you."

"Okay." Shutting her eyes again, her hand trailed from his chest downwards, wrapping itself smoothly around him.

"Are you okay, Peyt?" He asked again.

"Just tell me you want me. Tell me this is right." She kissed his jaw as she stroked him.

"You're not okay…"

Turning around, Peyton's hands entwined in his and led them to her breasts as she grinded against him. "Please?"

Her motions invoked a guttural moan from him and his head lolled back. He didn't need her hand to urge him anymore as he kneaded her chest; his other hand slipping down her waist to press her grinding movements even closer to him. "Oh God…" She brushed her lips over his Adam's apple and he could do nothing but comply, "Peyt, of course I want you. And you know I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't right."

He tried to turn her around but she shook his arm off. "No. Let's do it like this." She led his fingers down into her and tried not to think.

He bucked into her roughly when she asked him to go harder and she tried not to cry or think or look as she felt him in her. And when her senses exploded around her, it was Luke's face swimming in her mind's eye and it was Lucas Scott she was tightening against, Lucas Scott who gasped out her name.

xXx

"You didn't say my name. Not once. Not even before." Nathan said quietly as she toweled off with her back to him.

"What?" She scoffed distractedly.

"Say my name. Say it."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Why didn't you look at me?" He asked, a little more forcefully now. "Why didn't you _want_ to look at me?"

And her mind was replaying _Peyton Peyton Peyton. _

"Peyton."

The deeper voice, oh-so-familiar with old inflections of amused sarcasm or impatient anger, with arrogance or apology; the deeper voice without anguished ill-timed confessions or a softness that could break her heart with two syllables, broke through the mental block she constructed and she froze just as she had earlier. It was said with the same pained yearning.

She met his eyes, a picture of torture.

"This has something to do with Lucas, doesn't it?"

She had to shut out that expression. Shutting her eyes, she whispered, "You say my name just like he does. You treat me differently, you touch me differently, you make me feel differently; you make different noises when I make you come, you prefer different actions… but you both say my name in just the same way."

His silence was heavy with pain.

"I saw him today. He called out my name." Her eyes were still closed.

"Did it work?" Nathan's voice was hard and cold. She winced without looking up. "That's why you came back here, isn't it? Why you wanted me to screw you? You wanted to forget again." His words seemed to cut through the air like knives. "Judging by the way you're acting, it failed. I gotta tell you, it feels great to be used as a time-filler. A way to distract you."

"Isn't that what you're with me for?" Peyton swallowed. It surprised her how much the thought of him saying yes to the question stung her.

"You know what? Fuck you. What am I, some faceless body for all you care? I wouldn't be having sex with just any one at this stage in my life. I wouldn't be able to do this with anyone but you. I'm with you because you're you. And you're with me because I was there, willing, and convenient?"

"I didn't even turn around. He called for me and I didn't even turn around."

She bowed her head forward and instinctively Nathan took a step closer. She leaned against his chest and her hands once again rubbed circles over his pecs absently. Opening her eyes to stare at his chest as her fingers ran into metal, she said with surprise, "You're wearing your nipple ring again."

"Yeah, you like it, if I can remember correctly." The soft unspoken implication of _I'm wearing it because I remember you've always loved it and you're what matters now _penetrated her perfectly. Somehow, touching the silver piercing seemed terribly significant to her and ridiculous as it seems, she felt warmth spread across her.

Looking into his dark brown eyes, so very different from oceanic blue ones she had loved so very much, Peyton smiled without thinking, "I think I may just fall in love with you, Nate."

"What?" The suddenness of her words blindsided him.

"It…it makes it easier to pretend like we're just friends with benefits, like I only care about the physical. Like you're some way to distract me while I lick my wounds. But like I said before, we've never ever just been about that and what I have for you now, what I feel for you now… I can't explain it. I like to pretend sometimes because it makes me feel better, because let's face it, this whole thing is morally sticky. But I only have to pretend because I know in my gut that this is so, so significant. _We_ are so, so significant. And it scares me and worries me and guilts me and completely comforts me all at the same time."

"You've never used the term 'love' to me before."

"It's way, way too soon, I know. I'm just stupid and vulnerable right now and God you looked so hurt and it hurt to have you think I didn't care… and, well, my point is, I would never have been able to do this with anyone else either. It could only have been you. And I'm really glad for that."

"We are insanely dysfunctional."

"I know."

"And I have to tell you…there's only ever been one girl I've ever said I love you to, hell, there's only ever been one girl I've loved."

"I know that, Nathan. I said I _might_ FALL in love with you, not that I already am." She said, flustered.

"Shut up and let me speak, Sawyer. I was going to say that despite all that, it feels really good that you trust me enough to be vulnerable. It really would have sucked if this didn't mean as much to you as it did to me." He couldn't quite look at her as he spoke. "And you're the only other girl who's used the love term on me aside from Haley without sending me into a blind panic. I think I…would really like for you to be able to love me." Clearing his throat awkwardly, he tried to articulate himself, "Love me for me, I mean. Not the person you want me to be, but the person I am. No one's ever done that before. Made me feel like I was actually good enough as I am. And the fact that _you_ could… I don't know. I'm no knight in shining armour. I don't think I can 'save you'."

"But can't you see?" She wrapped fingers between his, "With you, I don't think I need to be saved. You make me okay."

"Doesn't every girl want the traditional prince charming to whisk them off their feet?"

"Nathan, you've known me for how long and you still think I'm like 'every girl'?" She grinned. "And please. All the interesting girls go for the dark horse."

"I'm hardly bad ass now."

"Oh? If I were to offer you a sexual fantasy favour, you would request…"

"Rape fantasy in a church confessional."

"You're bad ass enough for me." Peyton smirked, kissing him lingeringly.

"It's probably bad that I like hearing that."

"Mm, what? That I think you can be a bad, bad boy?"

"Call me a bad ass mother fucker and I may just come in your hands." He quirked his eyebrow up, his hand cupping her ass.

Smiling widely, Peyton kissed his ear and said lowly, "You're a bad ass mother fucker."

xXx

"So do you think we can we just stay here, together and alone forever?" Peyton sighed. "It's so, so much easier when no one else exists…"

"I can't be Lucas for you, Peyton."

"If this means you won't change your mind half a million times about what woman you want to be with, I'll be okay with that." She said wryly. "Nathan, if I wanted Lucas I wouldn't be with you. You may both be Scotts but despite being a blonde, I'm not stupid enough to hope you can be the same person."

"You know, if you're falling for me does this mean I'll actually have to buy you stuff and take you on dates now?"

"Shut up, idiot."

Nathan grinned and kissed her cheek, leaving the washroom so she could get dressed.

Late that night when he would slip into bed beside her, she would ask him if it was odd having a woman aside from Haley sleep next to him. He would be honest, because his nature was blunt, and he would say that he didn't feel like he was a twenty something adult when he was with her. Sometimes it would confuse him because the two of them together felt so natural, it was like they had been transported back in to their teen years; but at the same time who they were and what their lives were like now were so different that you couldn't even compare their relationship now and what their relationship had once been. Everything weighed down less on him when he was with her, everything was less serious and angst filled. There didn't seem to be any expectations and the rules and boundaries that had been built up in the last few years quite simply didn't exist because they never had existed with them.

She wasn't the same bitchy cheerleader he had slept with in high school and he sure as hell wasn't that cheerleader's boyfriend but their adult selves weren't so neatly severed from their past selves as they were when they were apart. It was as though a part of their youth came back to them, and a bit of the aged sadness that so much heartache had brought them faded away.

"It does feel strange. Sometimes, it feels like I'm cheating on her. Sometimes, I think I'm sixteen again. But more and more it's feeling like I'm twenty three and with an amazing woman who I've grown up with. It only feels strange when I really try and think about it all. When I don't, when I just let it be… it feels so natural it almost confuses me that it doesn't feel wrong."

Who they were then and who they are now was blended together almost seamlessly. She still liked to run her hands over his chest as she had in high school, he still had a fondness for her neck. But the way he said her name now was so different; he would linger on certain syllables in a way that was never as impatient or sharp as he once did. The way she smiled at him was genuine now and of her free violation, not coaxed out of her by his charm. He was sincere now, where once he had used his looks and charm to manipulate. She wasn't on the defensive all the time now, and actually let him see who she really was.

The changes were small enough to be deemed unimportant, but they noticed the subtleties. It saddened him slightly when he would watch her sleep all curled protectively into a ball when she had once lounged stretched across the entire bed. It would make her raise her eyebrows when he would automatically apologize for saying an offhand comment that could be taken as offensive. His fingers would feel bones that protruded more prominently now than they used to; hers would dance over the pads of his fingers that were smooth and callous-free in a way that pained her to feel when she would know instantly that it was caused by years without basketball. He would watch her straighten her hair every morning, she would notice how he never bothered to spike his anymore. He rarely drank now while she drank several times more than she ever used to.

He did stretches first in the morning, languid and cautious. When he caught her looking, he would instantly switch to something more strenuous. And she always noticed how he always ran faster in the first and last five minutes of his run because he didn't want her to know how much his stamina had gone down.

She barely ate, not that she used to eat very much anyways but now he would notice and care about that fact. Somewhere down the line he had learned how to cook, God knows he was far too lazy to before, and he would look at her pointedly until she put something in her mouth.

They could be fiercer in bed now; years of growing accustomed to tenderness had made them crave the rough, the animalistic. But sometimes he would hold her gently afterwards in a way he had never done before; she would nestle against him seeking a security she never used to make known that she wanted.

Slowly, Nathan sought to get to know the little details of this different Peyton Sawyer and she absorbed in the minute alterations he had made.

"You know, I told you once that I thought I would always have feelings for you. I wasn't wrong." He told her matter-of-factly the next morning. She had her back to him as she put her shirt on, he had his eyes trained towards the ceiling as he lifted weights.

Peyton smiled and finished dressing. They didn't look at each other and she didn't say anything. They didn't have to.

**xXx**

_Meet me tonight in Bubble Land_

_So far away from Trouble Land,_

_Hearts break like bubbles in the air,_

_But there we'll never know a care;_

_Let all our troubles fade like bubbles,_

_Meet me in Bubble Land._

* * *

**AN: **For the record, I love your reviews. A lot. I adore it when you guys on tangents, and I'm ecstatic that you all seem as excited and pumped for Pathan as I am :). This story is going to stick around for a while, don't worry. I really do hope the story won't disappoint, and will remain true to the characters. Also, this was a rather happy chapter because I felt we needed that- but as I'm sure you've noticed, this is a fairly dark, angst-filled fic. And that'll come back quite soon XD.


	4. The Weakness In Me

**The Weakness in Me**

_Why do you come here...  
When you know I've got troubles enough?  
Why do you call me…  
When you know I can't answer the phone_?

xXx

Leaning back against the door, Peyton smiled as she watched Nathan practice drills on the court outside his house. It felt soothingly nostalgic to see the man focussing on the sport that had defined him once upon a time.

Her smile broke when she saw him stumble over, his hand clutching his side.

"Nate?" She stood up quickly, concern coating her.

"I'm fine." He panted, though his expression was one of pain and loathing.

"Are you su-?" Before she could finish the question, Nathan had thrown his ball down hard against the concrete.

Clenching his fists together in anger, he glared at the ball. "I said I'm fine."

"You're doing great, Nathan."

"I have the stamina of an eighth grader." He sullenly responded.

"Your game is improving, I can see it." She pushed herself up off the door and reached out for his arm.

His eyes glared daggers at her. "Don't fucking patronize me, Peyton. I know I suck. I don't need you kissing my boo-boos."

Peyton's arms dropped and her expression hardened. "I'm not patronizing you. If you sucked, I'd just say that, you should know that. But you couldn't so much as stand up eight months ago. The fact that you're running a few miles a day and the fact that you can still sink eighty percent of the baskets you shoot is pretty damn impressive."

"I would have laughed at myself if high school me could have seen that."

"Yeah well high school you didn't get thrown through a glass window and have his spinal cord bruised." Peyton picked up the ball he had thrown away and absently dribbled it. "You can't expect yourself to meteorically rise up to your past abilities. I get that you're pissed, but calm your ass down. You're getting better every single day."

"Like you know anything about basketball and what I can do." Nathan scoffed.

She raised her eyebrows. "Excuse me, have you forgotten that I was the girl watching you, cheering you on, for almost every single game you ever played for the Ravens? I watched you when you were still more arrogant energy than real talent. I think if anyone's in a position to know how your game is and what you're capable of, well it'd be Whitey, but barring that- it'd be me. I know the nuances in your body and in your movements better than I know my own body."

"Do you really think I haven't turned into a fat useless waste of skin?"

"Definitely not fat. Useless, now that one's up for argument."

Nathan grinned and reached his arm out around Peyton's waist, pulling her in to kiss her on the cheek.

Wriggling out of his loose hold, Peyton forcefully chest passed the ball back to Nathan. "And Scott? Don't snap at me like that again unless I deserve it, you little temperamental baby."

"Sorry." He grinned again.

She started to go back into the house but he stopped her. "Peyton? Can you stay? I think it kind of helps me play better when you're watching."

"You always were the show-off." She laughed, though she sat on the steps with pleasure.

Ten minutes of watching Nathan shuffle around the court shooting baskets later and Peyton decided to make things more interesting. Stealing the ball from him, she skirted around him and sunk a perfect lay up.

At his look of disbelief, Peyton archly said, "Hey, I've got me some game too."

"It had to be a lucky shot."

Peyton snorted in offense, "What, I can't possibly be good at basketball?"

Lurching forward to swipe the ball from her grip, Nathan dribbled away from her and sent the ball arcing gracefully through the air and into the basket.

"Oh it's on now, bitch." She laughed, rushing to catch the rebound. Nathan stole it back from her and sunk another basket in.

She managed to catch the rebound again and rushed away quickly enough to throw another shot, but she missed rather miserably this time.

"Like I said, a lucky shot." Nathan crossed his arms smugly.

"I'm rather offended that you automatically think I suck at this."

Nathan bounced the ball back to her. "Hey, you have a career in music, you're an artist, you're smart, and you're hot. You can't be good at everything. That's all I'm assuming."

"Oh yeah? We're playing HORSE then."

"Strip HORSE?" Nathan asked hopefully.

Peyton rolled her eyes but agreed.

It was soon realized that Peyton wasn't half bad at basketball… but Nathan had a God-given talent for it, so she wasn't exactly whipping his ass.

The game was taking a while longer than Nathan had given the blonde credit for, though. He was adequately impressed.

"All right, so you've taken off your hoodie and both your shoes. I'm officially making it illegal for you to move on to your socks. Off with your shirt." Nate smirked.

"Mmm. I suppose it'd only be fair, since you're shirtless." She eyed his naked torso in amusement. "But then, who am I to play fair?"

"Maybe I'll just have to take it off for you."

"Maybe we have a game to finish playing." Peyton diverted, dribbling the ball.

"Oh no way," Nathan jumped forward to take the ball but Peyton's grip was firm. Changing tactics, he wrapped his arms around her slender frame, the tips of his fingers slipping under her shirt.

Laughing indignantly, Peyton squirmed, shooting her elbows playfully into his ribs.

"Why hellooo." A voice suddenly interrupted.

Nathan dropped Peyton and Peyton dropped the ball, both looking up with deer-in-headlights expressions.

It was only Skillz. A very amused looking Skillz.

He glanced at Nathan's shirt lying on the ground and Peyton's scrunched up shirt.

"We were playing HORSE." Peyton quickly inserted.

"Is this where you've been hiding out? No one's really been sure where you've been staying. I thought you moved in with Luke, Luke thought you were still with me and Mouth."

"Well, this _is_ my beach house."

"The one you said you didn't wanna touch 'cause it came from Dan." Skillz pointed out. He looked at Peyton. "And you, girl, you've been MIA so much the last few weeks. You been chillin in Nathan's crib?"

Nathan and Peyton tried to resist the urge to look at each other guiltily.

"Yeah, we've been hanging out a lot. We're friends man. And pretty much the only single ones left in our friend group." Nathan smoothly said. "I mean, you guys are great, but it's refreshing to be with someone who isn't one half of a couple."

"That's true, that's true." Skillz shrugged.

"What're you doing here anyways man?"

"Your mom wanted me to pick up some stuff, gave me the key. Didn't think I'd be intruding on anything."

"You're not." Peyton hastily spoke up. "We're just hanging out."

"Whatever helps you get through everything." Looking between the two of them, Skillz shook his head. "You two have been through a hell of a lot. What you do to heal from that is up to you and it ain't none of my business."

"Thanks, Skillz." Peyton smiled. "But we really are just hanging out."

"I better go do what I came here to do."

Once he had walked away, Peyton leaned against Nathan in relief. "He scared the crap out of me."

"Yeah me too. Can you imagine what would've happened had he walked in when we were having sex?"

"Ask to join in?" Peyton joked.

He chuckled but met her eyes to say, "It's gonna get out eventually, though, Peyt. Us. If we don't stop it soon, it'll get out."

"We'll just be careful."

"Haven't you learned anything about secrets in Tree Hill?" Nathan laughed.

"Well, we'll deal with that when it comes. Which I'm sure won't be for a good long while." Peyton said confidently. "Besides, I'm not willing to end this anytime soon."

"Good." He kissed her affectionately. "'Cause God knows I'd miss this."

She ran her hand through his hair and helped him get her shirt off.

"We're all sweaty."

"Yeah well I always thought watching you play was the hottest thing ever." Peyton grinned, slipping her hand down his shorts.

He unbuttoned her jeans and sighed into her neck as he leaned her against the wall of the house.

"Gotta love how we're not being careful at all." Peyton breathed, wrapping a leg around Nathan's waist.

Sucking on her bottom lip, Nathan bucked into her and panted that this was exactly why it was so damn hot.

-

That evening, Peyton found herself at Tric, partying it up with Brooke since Chase was back in town and he said this time he'd be staying awhile. It felt slightly strange being with the group again, but it was a good time regardless.

Of course, Lucas was there. He waited until she was winding down in a conversation with someone else to swoop in behind her, boxing her into staying out of of the binds of courtesy.

"Hey." He said softly.

Her gut clenched up instinctively. She nodded at him and tried to turn around.

"Peyton-"

She hated herself for still relishing the way her name _felt_ coming off his tongue. He reached a hand to take her arm and her rage was inflamed into lashing out. "Don't touch me."

He let go, scalded.

"Please…"

"No. No. You have no right saying anything to me at all. You have no right approaching me. So stop it. Stop looking at me and stop coming up to me and stop trying to talk to me."

"Peyton, I-"

"For God's sake STOP SAYING MY NAME!" The words came out as an emotional shout, and she clenched her jaw, embarrassed.

He touched her shoulder again, the weight comforting and familiar, which made her sting even more.

"I didn't mean any of it." He whispered. "You have to know I didn't mean a single word of the mind-blowingly moronic, rude, lies I said to you that day."

Having him here made her remember the words, remember the look of fierce hate on his face when he said them. Her eyes pricked with tears and she hated, hated herself for it.

"I was angry. I was hurt. Nothing I said was said with a straight mind-"

"Which means they were probably the most honest things you've said to me, since you didn't think it through, you just said what was on your mind. What you really felt."

"Jesus, everyone says stuff they don't mean when they're upset. I can't say I've never felt resentment towards you, but God Peyton you know I could never hate you."

"I felt it, Lucas. The hate. It came out of every pore of your body." She was staring hard at the surface of the bar in an attempt to keep her emotions in check.

"I selfishly, stupidly used you as a scapegoat for all the shit I was feeling. I didn't hate you, I hated the circumstances I was in; please, Peyt." His fingers went to her chin and adjusted her face to gaze at him. Instinctively, Peyton's arm shot out and slapped him hard across the face.

"I told you not to touch me." She hoarsely snapped. Watching him clutch his face, his eyes beyond wounded, she held strong to a backbone she had once given up for this man. "I'm done saying sorry to you. I'm done crying over you. I'm done hating myself because of you. I'm done wishing I could be better, wishing I was prettier or richer or more patient or more damn perfect for you. I'm done bending over backwards to try to make your life easier." Her breathing came uneven now but her anger had successfully beat out her grief, her tears at bay.

"I never, ever deserved you." He said quietly in response. "I know that." Oh God, his eyes were watering. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

But Nathan had spotted their blow out and noted Peyton's fury. He squeezed past dancing couples and drunk girls to plant himself in front of Peyton.

"Is everything okay here?" Nathan's tone was not friendly.

Peyton felt a simultaneous rush of affection for Nathan and a pull to hear what else Lucas had to say. The look in his eyes, the soulful expression that could fill her with the best warmth and the coldest pain, called out to her.

"Nathan, this is kind of a private conversation." Lucas sounded strained.

"Yeah. One that's over." Registering and disregarding the pain bubbling over in Lucas's eyes, the brunette placed his hand on Peyton's back and guided her away from his brother.

It wasn't until they were several feet away that Peyton realized her cheeks were wet with tears she hadn't noticed.

Nathan protectively asked if she was okay. In response, Peyton fell against his strong arms and closed her eyes the moment they rounded the corner. He hugged her tightly, saying nothing more.

Peyton pulled herself together as quickly as she could manage. Pulling away in embarrassment, she wiped at her face and wryly told Nathan that she wanted to get very, very drunk.

"You sure? I mean, I'll get you shitfaced if that's what'll help. But we could just go home." _Home. _The fact that he used that term for the beach house he hated not so long ago, the house they kind of lived in together half the time now, startled Peyton but it felt completely natural. The hole in her chest grew just a little bit smaller. "We could just sit on the couch. Watch a movie." Her silence spurred him to keep talking. "I know you're probably thinking I'm such a dad, boring and house trained and domesticated, and I know it's still early, so we don't have to, but I just wanted to let you know that's an option."

"I'd like that." She smiled. "Let's go home."

Hugging Chase and Brooke before they made their way out of the club, Peyton looked straight ahead of her and willed her smile not to waver.

"You drunk already, chicken legs?" Brooke laughed.

"Group things suck." Peyton shrugged brusquely. "Sorry BFF, love you, but I'm off."

"Mmm. At least Nathan's taking care of you and you're not leaving with some drunk guy." She answered brightly.

"I'll do my solemn best not to let anyone take advantage of her." Nathan chuckled.

Peyton tried to hide her smirk as she bumped his shoulder playfully.

The two continued outside, Nathan struggling to decide if he should say anything about Lucas. What could he say? _My brother's a moron. Lucas is a prick. Want me to punch him for you? _Should he even bring it up again? What was he expected to do? Would comforting her be too boyfriend-esque? Would ignoring it come off as him not caring?

Just as they were about to split up to go to their separate cars, Peyton turned around quickly. "Thank you." She hugged him again and gave him a small peck on the cheek.

"Anything for PMS." He said glibly.

"I'm sorry I keep crying over him."

"Don't mention it. God knows I'd want to be saved from a conversation with Haley." He shrugged.

"See you in a few." She unlocked her doors.

"We are going to have to deal with them sometime, Sawyer." Nathan opened the door for her. "But we can do it together. And have hot hate revenge sex afterwards."

"You're such a whore." She laughed. "But that would soften the blow."

In the few minutes it took Nathan to walk to his car, his cell started vibrating. Lucas.

"_Nate, what the hell. Do you know how long I've been trying to get Peyton to stand still long enough to talk to her?" _

"Dude, did you not notice how upset she looked? She's hurting right now. A lot."

"_So am I." _His was the sound of a broken man and suddenly Nathan felt washed over with contrition.

"I'm not choosing sides, you gotta know that. I'm just worried about Peyton. And you. But she's kind of the underdog right now."

"_I said some really fucked up shit to her, man. I really messed up."_

"You're going through a lot of heavy crap, Luke."

"_Yeah. I just…seeing you stand between me and her tonight…it made me realize how much I've missed you as well as her. We haven't talked in a while." _Nathan felt guilt spring up. He had been avoiding him almost as much as he had been avoiding Haley.

"I know man. I'm sorry. I want to help you through this."

"_No, I want to help you too. I just lost my fiancée…you just lost your wife. And I've got a best friend to talk to, but man you've got no one. And I feel like I've abandoned you 'cause I was too stuck in my own problems."_

"Don't even go there. I'm fine, really."

"_God, I miss her Nathan. I miss Peyton so damn much."_

"I wish I knew what to say." Was this really happening? Was he really having this conversation?

"_Thanks. I just wanted to call to make sure we were cool. You looked…angry in there."_

"I'm a sucker for crying chicks, sorry. But…stay away from her, okay? She needs time."

As the conversation winded down and Nathan pulled into the driveway of the beach house, he felt slightly sickened with himself for making light out of his motivations for pulling Peyton away. But it wasn't as though he could tell his brother he was sleeping with the ex love of his life.

Peyton sat on his lap once the two were on the couch in the house. He didn't wait longer than a minute to tell her about the phone call…sans the missing her so damn much part, and conveniently leaving out that he had told Luke to stay away. Peyton cringed and apologized for putting Nathan in between them.

"You never should have gotten caught up with the Scott brothers." Nathan joked. "We're way too much drama."

"What if he hates you?" Her tone was concerned.

"What if they all hate us?" Nathan's was decidedly not. "They'll deal with it. And if all else fails, I'll whip out grade school logic. I had you first."

"I don't know how you can be calm about this." She smiled, mildly enviously.

"Caring what people think makes you hollow." He took her hand. "And I don't want either of us to get to be as hollow as I was."

Liking the feel of his now slightly calloused hands, Peyton rested on Nathan's shoulder as they flipped through the television channels, watching nothing.

-

A few days later, Peyton was leaning against her car with a wicked smirk on her face as she waited for Nathan to park. The moment she saw him kill the ignition, she strode over, not giving him even enough time to get out. He rolled down the window, amused but confused. She had called him earlier to ask him to drive his old SUV that day and he had complied.

"Guess what I found in the back of my closet this morning?" Peyton grinned, her hair left curly that morning. She brought her hands out from behind her back and shook the two pom-poms she was holding.

Nathan laughed, but that wasn't all. Undoing her coat, Peyton smugly revealed that she was wearing her old Tree Hill High cheerleading outfit.

The look on Nathan's face can be described as nothing less but incredulous glee.

"Wanna give me a ride, boyfriend?" Peyton said in the sing-song voice Brooke used to use.

"Boyfriend?"

"Oh shut up, I'm role-playing here." She rolled her eyes. "Now are you gonna stop gawking and let me in or what?"

"Now there's the Peyton attitude that matches that outfit." He unlocked the doors and she hopped in, quickly chucking her coat in the back seat.

"I thought it'd be funny to re-create the past." Peyton held up a CD, the very same one Nathan had thrown out his window after insulting her music taste for the thousandth time years ago.

He laughed out loud this time and gamely put it into the player. She leaned over to kiss him, but he stopped her. "If you're dressed up for me, fair's fair." He jogged out the door, light pleasure across his features.

Five minutes later, he climbed back into the car in his old Tree Hill jersey.

"Man we must look completely ridiculous right now." Peyton snorted, feeling the ever so familiar _23_ marked across the fabric.

"Yeah, I do feel kind of old in this. But it's funny shit." Peyton nodded and leaned in to kiss him, but once again he pulled away. "Sawyer, we've gone this far. I think we both know this isn't complete just sitting here in the driveway."

"Oh, you can't really mean-"

Nathan flashed a huge grin and started up the car, driving the once familiar route to the side of the river. The sun had set a while ago and darkness was claiming the world, blanketing the atmosphere near the river with a very comfortable ambiance and one that made Nathan's stomach churn with desire.

"It's funny that this place can still make me feel horny." Nathan shook his head, killing the engine again.

Peyton chuckled, looking around at how completely familiar this way. "You know, I'm way happier right now then I was the last time we were here dressed this way."

The man next to her smiled at her words, his eyes drinking in her form as he pulled her close. Their lips met playfully, her hand cupping his smooth jaw as his hands glided up her leg and under her skirt.

She lifted his jersey off and kissed his chest affectionately. "Damn, you really are kind of hot, Nathan Scott."

"I've missed your curls." He said in response, tangling his free hand in them.

"Wanna be the jack ass and I can be the bitch?" She joked.

He removed her underwear and cupped her ass. "Wanna shut up so I can fuck you?"

She pulled off his shorts and leaned over to kiss his head briefly, watching as he leaned back with his eyes closed. Her hands continued what her mouth had started, as her lips returned to crushing against Nathan's. He let out a quiet moan and turned her over, pushing her back against the seat. They moved against each other, letting the friction build up and the anticipation and need to grow. She breathed out his name pleadingly and he obliged, going into her slowly, agonizingly. He kept his rhythm slow, sending her craving more.

"You're killing me here."

"That's the point." He smirked.

She clutched at his back and wrapped her legs around him, arcing herself forward to feel more of him. She kissed him and bit his bottom lip gently, letting her fingers dig into his shoulders. His resolve faded as his need increased, finally bucking faster for her. Suddenly, Peyton moved forward, shoved him back against the steering wheel, and climbed on top. The speed she moved herself in him was almost frantic, and he grunted in carnal satisfaction as he kept his hands on her ass, doing all he could to hold on.

They both collapsed back against the seats ten minutes later, breathing unsteadily.

"Damn." He sighed, looking at her.

"You really are good in bed." She laughed, fanning herself.

"You're the best I've ever had." Nathan admitted suddenly.

"Seriously?" She raised her eyebrows, delighted.

"Yeah. And I love that I was your first. It's a major turn on."

"We'll have to do this after every game." Peyton smirked, bringing back the high school fantasy.

He just shook his head, letting his fingers trail possessively over her thigh as they drove away from the side of the ride.

"Oh shit, I have to get some of my stuff together at my office." Peyton said a few minutes later. Nathan nodded and pulled into a different lane to drop her off at Tric, asking her if he should wait. She shook her head, saying she'd call if she needed a ride but that she'd likely be fine finding her own way home since Chase would likely be getting off shift soon anyways.

She finished stuffing papers into her bag and flipping through files and had just tracked down Chase to ask for a ride when Lucas popped up beside the two of them and offered her a ride himself.

Peyton knew she should avoid close, trapped proximities to him at all times so she started to say no. She turned away from his dejected form but she couldn't make herself keep walking when he asked her to wait.

Clenching her jaw, she followed him to outside to hear what he had to say.

She noticed that he kept a careful distance, refraining himself from touching her in any way. This hurt her in a way she knew to be ridiculous since she was the one who snapped at him not to touch her.

"You have every right to avoid me." Lucas sighed. "And if I was a smarter man, maybe I would have taken Nathan's advice and stayed away."

Peyton glanced up at him at those words, trying to remember that Nathan was just trying to protect her. That failed and she felt anger at the man for giving Lucas advice about anything.

"I've spent a lot of the last few weeks trying to sort myself out. And everyone was right. I hate them and myself for it, but they were right. I'm always just hiding. Any time I'm with anyone else but you, I'm just hiding."

"You can't say that and expect me to come crawling back every time, Lucas." Peyton said, inflamed. "I told you I made a mistake saying no. I told you I came back for you. I told you everything I felt for you and you slapped me in the face with it and chased after a woman that left you at the altar, a hurt deeper than anything I've done."

"I know. I'm a moron. I'm an ass of a moron." He agreed. "And you…you can't know how much it hurts me to see the pain in your eyes any time our eyes meet. I can't tell you how angry I am at myself for doing that to you."

She crossed her arms and arched her eyebrows. "Yeah, you're sorry. That's not enough. It can't be enough."

"I know. My actions and words have tortured you for months and I know that no apology can ever make up for that. But I just need you to know that I do love you. That I do want to be with you. That I appreciate every second you spent trying to get me to see the truth that we always will be connected. That I regret every moment I tried to fight it. You're the best thing I've ever had, Peyton."

That rang so similar to what Nathan had told her just an hour ago. She tried not to think about the fact that Lucas was talking about best emotionally and Nathan had meant best physically.

"I won't do that to myself again, Lucas. I won't let myself think that we can be happy, won't put myself through the pain. I've fought for you. I have. I've been through hell and back for you and I can't do it again. I won't survive another round of this." She shut her eyes.

"It won't be like that." Lucas whispered. "I want to marry you, Peyt. I want to have forever with you. There will never be anyone else. There won't be that pain anymore. It's just you and me."

She kept her eyes shut and her jaw clenched.

"I know that you may never forgive me for the past year, and I'll understand if you can't ever trust me again. But I need you. You're the only woman I've ever needed. There's been no one else, not since junior year of high school. I've been in love with you since before you even knew who I was. And if I could wait for you then, I can sure as hell wait for you now."

"You've said that before." She said vehemently.

"There's no one else."

"You've said that before." Her voice cracked.

"I won't make the same mistake again."

"You made the same mistake time and time again!"

"But I won't. Not again. Every time I hurt you, I hurt myself. There won't be anyone else for me, not ever. If you can't be with me, then I'll choose to be alone. No one else fits with me. I know that now." He wiped the tears from her face with such softness. "I'd rather be alone than with someone who isn't you."

And his scent, his damn familiar scent, with his stupid familiar expression of stupidly familiar devotion- it got to her. A history of broken promises and flowery words and deception warred with the history of contentment and yearning and so much emotion.

"I can't do this. I can't be hearing this. I can't. I can't. I was getting better, Lucas! The meteor-sized hole in my chest was healing and I was getting better. I was actually happy for a while. And then you come in with the words you've used on every woman you've ever tried to dupe and that hole? It expands again. And I can't."

He shut his eyes, a flinch that exuded so much sadness, before opening them again. "I've never tried to dupe you. I've never wanted to bring you pain."

"Yeah well, intentions don't really matter given the outcome."

As if noticing for the first time, Lucas blurted. "…Are you in your cheerleading outfit?"

"I thought it'd be funny to pretend to be in high school again." She answered acidly.

"God, I wish we were sixteen again so I could fix this."

She hated him for saying that. "Well, we can't be. We're not sixteen, we're not teenagers, we never can be again no matter how much we moronically wish we could be." She was so stupid for dressing up this way, so stupid for thinking she could play pretend for any amount of time. She was so foolish for trying to fool herself.

"If I could do it over again, it'd be you everytime." His fingers lightly laced in hers and it felt so, so good. She stared at their hands and sobbed. "I will never make you cry again." She fell against his shoulder, leaving wet marks on his shirt, letting herself feel the comfort of his warmth wrap around her. His arms held on to her as though they wanted to keep all the pain of the world away from her. But a beat passed and she ripped herself from his grasp, hating herself for wanting to be with him again, hating that her body was begging her to kiss him and love him and let herself be loved by him.

"_It'll always be there between us, won't it? You and me."_

"_I'll be seeing you."_

"_I'll wait for you."_

"_True love always."_

"I'll never stop loving you." He pledged.

"I wish, I wish, I could." She answered brokenly, walking away from him into the night.

-

She walked the several miles home. Her actual home, with Brooke, not the beach house. She fell into bed, holding herself tightly, trying to breathe.

Her phone rang. Nathan. She shut her eyes and ignored it. Her phone rang. Lucas. She bit her lip so hard it bled and threw the phone against the wall with so much force it cracked in two.

She stared into the darkness of her room noiselessly until finally she felt a weight on her bed and a hand on her shoulder.

"I got worried when you didn't come home, or answer my calls." Nathan said to her back.

This is my home, she thought angrily, but did not voice. This is the place all my crap is, this is the place I pour money into upkeeping, this is my goddamn house.

"Are you okay?"

She shook her head.

"What's wrong? Is it-" She knew he would ask if it was Lucas and she couldn't bear to even hear him say the name so she cut him off in a voice as steady as she could make it.

"Just work stuff. It's getting to me."

He nodded sympathetically. "Do… do you want to be alone?" He sounded hurt suggesting the idea of it. She couldn't bear to hear pain in anyone else's voice. She couldn't bear to see wounded eyes and heartbroken pleas. She looked at him, wanting to tell him to go away, wanting to not deal with anything, ever. Instead she let him wrap his arm around her, a part of her weeping because she could feel no comfort from the embrace.

"We can't stay here. Brooke will see." She said, her voice raspy. Shutting her eyes, she stood up cautiously and walked to the door, knowing without turning around that Nathan was behind her.

Wordlessly walking into the beach house twenty minutes later, he tried to ask if she had gotten a ride from Chase. "I walked."

"Why didn't you call?"

She refused to let Lucas ruin this utopian state she had managed to salvage. She refused to let him win. Forcing a smile, she shrugged that she just felt like walking.

"Are you okay?" He asked again, concern etching itself all over him.

She kissed him comfortingly on the lips. "Don't worry, it's nothing."

Taking his hand, they fell into bed together and she leaned into his chest, faking contentment for the first time in weeks.

_Feeling guilty....worried.  
Waking from tormented sleep.  
This old love has me bound...  
But the new love cuts deep_

_You make me lie...  
When I don't want to.  
And make someone else...  
Some kind of an unknowing fool.  
You make me stare...  
When I should not.  
Are you so strong...  
Or_ is the weakness in me_?_

* * *

**AN: **Yes, my rare updating habit is bad, sorry! Thanks for the reviews, they fuel me. I was in a rush to finally update this, so I'll likely be editing it sometime since I only had time to skim it over.


	5. Learning To Fall

**Learning To Fall**

_Today is the day, t__he worst day of my life  
You're so content it hurts me  
The cost of misery is at an all time high  
I keep it hidden, close to the surface in sight_

xXx

Peyton didn't sleep well for the first time since she found Nathan sitting outside his beach house that one stormy afternoon. Her dreams were haunting echoes of pain and regret and when she woke up all she could think about was her deeply engrained history with Lucas. She woke up well before the alarm went off. The girl found herself waiting impatiently for the minutes to pass; the arm around her felt heavy and constricting.

She couldn't wait. She slipped out of bed and out of the house long before sunrise and just sat in her car that was still parked inside Nathan's driveway. After ten minutes of just staring at the steering wheel, she turned the car on and even though she hated herself every second it took to drive there, she ended up in front of Lucas's place.

She didn't knock, she didn't call. She just opened the door and walked right in. It should have surprised her to see him awake and at his desk, but it didn't. Nothing registered.

"-Peyton-" He was startled enough for the both of them.

"I don't even know why I'm here." She cut him off. "I couldn't sleep and I ended up here and I want you to know that I don't want to be here."

He was standing beside her before she even comprehended that he had moved. His arms were holding her to him before she could open her mouth again and she felt nothing, nothing but a hollow ache.

"Don't tell me nice little lies. Don't promise me anything. Don't apologize. Just speak. Just speak, okay?" She whispered into his shirt, unconsciously breathing in his smell.

"Okay." She could feel his breath on her forehead and it hurt her. "It's three thirty in the morning and I'm awake because I haven't slept more than two hours a night since my wedding day. And the thing that made me yell at you so harshly in the beginning was because I was scared, scared and angry, because when I was kept awake all I could think of was your face, your words, your touch, your love. When Lindsay walked away from me, everyone watched her, but I watched you watching me and I hated both of us so much for it. Because no one can get between us, not even if I would sell my soul for it to be different. She was perfect for me, Peyton. And she was the best person for me. But she wasn't you. She could've been an actual angel and it wouldn't have mattered because she wasn't you."

"Don't tell me nice little lies." Peyton cried into his chest.

"I'm Lucas Scott. I'm the guy who loved you since the eighth grade. I'm the guy who never would have made it out of the river court if I hadn't wanted to be with you so badly. I'm the guy who used to dream about marrying you. I'm Lucas Scott. I have blond hair and a tendency to be tortured and I have always and will always want to be with you, no matter who we change into, no matter what happens, no matter where we go. Always."

And she tore herself away from him and leaned against his door, willing herself to walk out the other side.

"Could you ever be with me again?"

He didn't walk closer to her; just watched her painfully from across the room and she knew he wanted the best for her, knew he cared, knew her prayers for the last year had come true and that she could have him if she just said yes right now, said yes to him like she should have done years ago.

In an attempt to look at anywhere but at him, Peyton's gaze landed on a framed picture sitting on his desk. It was the old comic she had drawn for him, the one that caused him to tell her that her art mattered to him. The picture invoked the nostalgia of game night, of his adoring eyes on hers and the glow she had felt upon hearing his words.

He followed her gaze and picked up the picture frame. "I keep this here to inspire in me the intense feelings I held inside me when you first gave this to me. It helps me write with heart. God, Peyton, I'd be nowhere without you. Hell, the only things I've ever written are based almost entirely on how you made me feel." He took a few slow steps towards her and took her hands in his. "I would do anything to fix the mistakes I've made. Peyton, tell me what I can do to make this better and I'll do it, okay? I'd do anything to be with you. I miss you every moment. Please, tell me you miss me too."

"I miss the way you say my name like you're breathing out a prayer. I miss the way your eyes light up when you see me, and the way your hand feels in mine. I miss how I feel when you're inside me, and I miss how you smell. But missing you is easier than loving you, by far." Peyton said, her voice unsteady.

"You think it's been easy for me?" He asked softly. "It's not about what's easy. It's about what's right. I know it's hard. But it hurts because it's real."

And she thought about another boy, another Scott; another relationship that didn't hurt, that wasn't hard. And she wondered if that meant that relationship was wrong, that it was not real.

"Just say you could be with me again. Just say yes. Just say someday."

She closed her eyes.

-

Guilt attacked her already emotionally bulldozed mind as Peyton flipped the alarm off a second after it trilled, the memory of her late night trip to Lucas's still stabbing at her thoughts.

She lightly moved Nathan's arm off of her and started to walk to the bathroom.

"'Morning." Nathan's sleepy voice trailed after her. She stopped to give him a brief smile.

Locking the door behind her, Peyton faced the bathroom mirror and clenched her jaw at the reflection. There were bags under her eyes for the first time in weeks and she hated that she looked as haggard as she felt.

A shower did nothing to lift her spirits and it was with some reluctance that she finally walked back into the bedroom. She knew it was horrible of her but she just did not want to face Nathan. His warmth and dark humour- his mere presence- made her insides freeze. She felt like she was cheating on him. She owed him nothing, and she had done nothing with Lucas, but she inescapably felt like she had betrayed him. Like she _was_ betraying him.

"Are you all right?" Nathan asked her. He was still clad in nothing but his pyjama pants and was holding a plate of toast. He greeted her with a kiss on the forehead.

"Yeah." She thought if she had to force one more smile, her face might break into pieces.

He put the plate down on the unmade bed. "Peyton, you look like death. You don't have to lie." His hand on her bare shoulder, his eyes searching her face… She couldn't do this. "Come on. Tell me what's going on with work."

Peyton was startled by the question, forgetting momentarily that she had told him that was why she was upset the night before. She quickly rearranged her facial expression and just shrugged. "It's nothing, Nathan."

"It isn't nothing; it's obviously affecting you."

"I don't want to talk about it with you, okay?" She snapped, stepping away from his grasp.

"Jesus, fine." His face turned stony. He turned back to the toast, finished it in three big bites, and stalked into the washroom, slamming the door behind him as he went.

Peyton stiffly pulled open the drawer that held several of her clothes and snatched up something random to change into. When she wandered into the kitchen, she winced hard as she saw the plate of freshly prepared food on the counter. He had made her omelettes and toast.

She turned on the coffee machine and stared at the food. God, why did he have to be a good guy? Why did Lucas have to take his head out of his ass now, of all times? Did the two of them just have radar for knowing when the other was actually happy, radar for knowing when would be the most crushing opportunity to confess hidden feelings?

She was tempted to leave right then, to just get up and walk out of the house and drive away. The food was simple, but it was made with a certain level of thoughtfulness that made her want to cry. She took a bite. Bacon and cheese. Her favourite. She wanted to leave this house but she couldn't…she couldn't leave Nathan; this she knew with a sudden ferocious firmness.

When Nathan resurfaced, he found Peyton weeping beside her mostly untouched plate.

"Shit, it isn't that bad is it?"

She looked up at him with reddened eyes. "I'm a total bitch, Nathan. You shouldn't do stuff like this for me. I'm a bitchy mess. You should just leave me alone and go be functional with people who aren't completely psychotic."

"…It's just eggs." He was completely confused.

"I'm being serious."

He pulled up a stool next to her. "I know you're a bitchy mess. I've always known. I kind of don't mind, Peyton."

"Well you should." She picked up her fork and savagely stuffed food in her mouth and promptly felt tears coming on again. "You're too good."

"That's something I never thought I'd hear." He frowned, even more confused than he was a moment ago.

All of a sudden, Peyton leaned her exhausted, red-eyed form into him and whispered that she never should have left him to begin with.

"Dude, _I_ would've left me for Lucas if I were you. Where the hell is this coming from?" He hugged her to him, panicking at the state of emotional chaos running rampant in the girl he had come to associate with steel calmness.

She took a few shaky breaths and got a hold of herself. He could actually watch as she wrapped her emotions back into a tight ball inside of herself. She wiped her eyes, straightened up, and the calm resolve was back on her face.

"You're good for me, Nate. You're better for me." She squeezed his arm lightly and hopped off the stool to clear her plate. Just like that, she had reigned herself in and Nathan had no idea what it was he just witnessed but he felt a chilling feeling of nervousness at the back of his mind.

"I'm really fucking confused right now."

"Like I said, I'm a friggin' mess." She said flippantly. "Go do your run. I'll clean up in here."

"You'll be here when I get back?"

"Of course."

He gave her one last uncertain look before doing what she suggested, walking out the door cautiously.

Shoving the plates into the sink, Peyton desperately wished she could talk about this with Brooke. She knew that unless she and Nathan ended their little tryst, they'd have to bring it out in the open soon. She also knew that if they brought it out into the open, it'd completely destroy Lucas and she couldn't handle seeing that. What the hell was she supposed to do here?

No. She knew. Cutting ties with Lucas would eliminate the problem. All she had to do was stay away from him, and keep a lid on her relationship with Nathan for a little while longer. Things would go back to the way they were, things would settle down, and then when everyone had moved on, they could tell people they were together.

Or she could cut her losses with Nathan now. They had a good run, but who were they fooling? She wanted Lucas and she knew that she would always want him. It didn't matter who was better for her, who she was actually happier with. The heart wants what it wants. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to let Nathan go now, before either of them got even more attached. And what, Peyton? Did she actually think she could just be with Lucas again after all that had happened? Somewhere inside of her, she didn't think she could ever trust the blond again, ever be with him in any capacity again.

But maybe she should be alone. Lucas would make her crumble in all the worst ways and she didn't deserve to be in an uncomplicated relationship with Nathan if she still had feelings for his brother. She should be alone.

He made her breakfast and got worried when he didn't hear from her. His embrace got tighter as he fell asleep, not looser. He didn't play mind games with her and he was every bit as broken as she was. He had been her favourite part of waking up for the last month. And she still missed blond locks and blue eyes, grey hoodie and sheepish smile.

Peyton turned the light off in the room where those thoughts lived in her mind. Wiping the counter clean, she told herself that Nathan and her were just friends who helped each other through a rough patch. She told herself they had never been more than friends with benefits and she would be losing nothing by ending what they had. She could imagine the absolute betrayal that would plaster itself across Lucas's face when he found out about them (and there was no delusion of if because if things kept going, he _would_ find out) and she couldn't do that to him. They had hurt each other enough to last several lifetimes. He may have steamrolled through her heart, but she knew he was hurting and she could never muster up the vindictiveness needed to enjoy his pain.

She sat on the front porch and waited for Nathan to come back from his run. She was sick of the little circles everyone went around in denial and avoidance; she wasn't going to prolong this.

He was sweating heavily and trying to pretend like he wasn't out of breath. Still vain.

"Do you really have to insist on watching me come back from my runs? It's kind of embarrassing." He complained jokingly.

"I'm helping you get over your ego." She rolled her eyes and automatically tossed him a bottle of water.

He doused himself with it, chugged half the bottle, and tore his wife beater off. "Oh come on. My cockiness was totally what drew you to me in the first place."

"Huh. Funny, 'cause I seem to remember it was your _cock_ that drew you to me." Peyton grinned, unable to keep from bantering. She had meant to just say straight up that they should stop doing…well, each other, but one joke from him made her ruefully admit to herself that she couldn't just blurt something like that and walk away.

Nathan slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her to him. "You know I set that up so you'd say that, right?"

"I think we're getting to know each other a little too well." Peyton chuckled.

He kissed her affectionately before releasing her. "So are you in a better head space yet?"

"I'm not Haley, and I sure as hell am not going to tell you every thought that comes into my head." She hadn't meant to be so mouthy but it was the first thing that came to mind.

"…And the answer to my question would be a resounding 'no'." Nathan sighed. "Good to know. Could you maybe send out an advanced warning next time you're like this?"

"You'll be sure to avoid me, right?"

"Well, yeah. Fuck, Peyton, I may have moved up a few pegs on douchebaggery since high school but I'm not going to meekly hover around you anxiously asking what the fuck is wrong with you when you've made it exceedingly clear that you're not giving me a hint of a detail."

"Maybe we should just end this." She also hadn't meant to just come out and say that, especially in context of a fight with him.

Nathan's eyebrows shot up in surprise and he let out a hollow laugh. "Hold up. Seriously? Seriously? Okay Peyton, you've boarded the crazy train and you're steadily moving out of sanity town. What the hell?"

"We've had a good run of string-less sex, some good conversation. It's been a good time and maybe we're all healed up. Maybe we should cut our losses now and just go back to how we used to be."

"Never mind, you're completely insane. Weren't you the one that was talking about telling everyone about us just the other day? 'It's been a good time'? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Peyton ran her hands through her hair and leaned back against the wall of the house. "I don't know." She didn't know how to take the fact that Nathan's tone was completely bemused, like he didn't think for two seconds that she actually wanted to end things.

"What the hell happened last night?"

"I'm trying to break up with you, for lack of a better term, and you're asking me about last night?"

"Well, yeah since you were completely fine before I saw you last night, I think it's safe to say something set you off. And since you're kind of freaking me out here with your weird outbursts, I'd like to know what made you go all crazy." Nathan crossed his arms expectantly. "And by the way, you can't break up with me; we're not fucking going steady or anything."

"Hey genius, that's why I said 'for lack of a better term', ass hat." She all but stomped back inside the house.

Nathan took her arm again. "Just tell me what's up. I know it's not that you're sick of me. I'm too much of a catch for anyone sane to cut loose."

Peyton had to admire the fact that he actually said that with a straight face. Smiling in spite of herself, she retorted, "Well since you yourself just said I'm not sane, problem solved, you self-assured jerk."

"I'm going to hold you hostage here until you stop changing the subject on me." Nathan said seriously. "My grip has broken arms before, you know that."

"Are you threatening to break my arms?" She pretended to sound alarmed.

He rolled his eyes. "Sawyer, I'm serious. I'm not letting you go until you tell me what set off the batshit alarms in your head."

"The kids whose arms you broke back in the day hardly put up any fight at all. I could take you, you know. If I really wanted to get free, I'd be free."

"You're changing the subject again. And just so you know, they didn't put up a fight because they knew they'd just hurt themselves more if they did. I have a death grip."

"They didn't put up a fight because you had half the varsity basketball team on standby, ready to beat the rest of the shit out of them if you so much as nodded your head." Peyton said glibly. Her avoidance of hard questions was a skill so honed it was almost artistic at this point.

"I'm not that easily distracted. I'm going to ask again, what happened?"

"Damn it. You _used_ to be that easily distracted."

"And you used to sneer at the guys I used to beat up, not save them in time to humiliate me."

"Oh, you went there."

"You brought up Haley first. I let it go then, but you're painting yourself into a corner." Nathan shrugged unapologetically.

She could see that he really wasn't to be deterred. But she could picture his crushed expression just as clearly as she had pictured Lucas's and she knew that was the face she'd be seeing if she so much as mentioned the other Scott brother. She knew she'd have to hurt at least one of them sooner or later.

"It's Jamie." She was choosing later. "We're not kids anymore, hell you have a kid. You can't do stuff like hiding away in your beach house with your fuck buddy while mommy takes care of your son. And it's not like we can introduce me to him as, well, anything. I'm Aunt Peyton. If I'm anything else, I'm a homewrecker, he's scarred for life and anti-me and probably pissed at you, and Haley will probably make sure you get like no custody of him." Peyton was just as startled to hear her own words as Nathan was. She didn't know how the lies came so damn easily, but it made her nervous. At the moment, she was too relieved that her mind came up with something, anything else. And to be fair, this was a legitimate concern of hers that had cropped into her mind on more than one occasion.

Nathan visibly relaxed. He actually smiled. This alarmed her.

"You're worried about Jamie?" He sounded touched. His fingers slid down her arm to loosely take her hand.

"Well, it's a pretty big deal. We haven't really addressed telling anyone about us, much less your son. So if we don't tell anyone about us and don't plan to, we should just end things. You can't sneak around like that, not when you've got a family."

"I get it now. You think I don't take what we are seriously because I've been so determined to keep us hidden. That I'm not planning for this to be a long term thing because it's not out in the open."

The look of affection on his face was making Peyton really uncomfortable.

"No one knows about us. We can just stop what we've been doing and no one ever has to know. It'll be okay."

"You want to end things because you don't want me hiding things from my son and you know it'll hurt him." Nathan shook his head in awe. "Peyton, you're insane for thinking you're anything less than awesome. That's possibly the most considerate thing I've ever heard."

"Hey, I just don't want that kid hating us." She smiled weakly.

"He won't. You know I see him almost every day. He doesn't like that Haley and me aren't together, but me and Haley have made it very clear to him that this isn't going to change. Haley's making sure I get to spend a lot of time with him and so far, it doesn't seem like she's been talking badly of me to him because he still hero worships both of us. If we play this right, I think we can all come out unscathed."

"Your divorce wasn't consensual, Nathan."

"Maybe it wasn't in the beginning, but it is now."

Peyton's eyes widened in surprise. "…What?"

He shrugged his shoulders and got out another bottle of water from the fridge. "Peyt, I thought this was pretty clear. Did you really think I'd be with you if I wanted Haley back?"

"I didn't exactly give you time to think about it. Our sexcapades started the day she filed for divorce. I always just thought that if given the chance, you'd…"

He stared at her incredulously. "You really thought I'd sleep with you while I still had hope for making my marriage work? I'm not that guy."

"So if Haley said to you right now that she wanted to be with you, forget everything that's happened, and just be your wife again, you would say no."

"Peyton, if there was half a chance of that happening, I would not have touched another woman. Besides, if she did that I would be obligated to tell her about us and that would effectively kill that train of thought. And hell, you've made me realize that I don't want to be with her any more."

She was still blinking at him in complete bewilderment.

"Why do you look so shocked?"

"She was the love of your life. And you would choose me."

"She was the love of my life in high school, Peyton. She was the first person I loved, and she's the mother of my child. I'll always love her. But I haven't been _in love_ with her for a long time. People change. Feelings change."

"The divorce is final. You're never going to be with her again." Peyton stated blankly.

"Breaking news considering I've fallen asleep holding you every night for weeks." Nathan laughed.

"And we're…"

"You asked me what we were recently and I didn't know. But I know it's big. It's real. And it sure as hell isn't some quick meaningless rebound thing. And it definitely isn't something I'd be okay with ending soon, okay? Peyton, I'm with you. I like it this way."

Looking into his dark eyes, she knew he meant every word with a calm simplicity that only he could posses.

"Now. I have to shower. Wanna join me?"

Instead of walking away from all they had, instead of even pointing out that she had already showered that morning, she found herself looking into those dark eyes and saying she'd love to.

-

Nathan was happy. He had been happy for a while now and it was something that took some getting used to. It wasn't the domestic, I'm-a-father kind of happy that his family brought him, and it wasn't the I-scored-the-winning-basket kind of happy that the game brought him; it wasn't anything to do with his accomplishments and it had nothing to do with anything outside of himself. He was happy with where he was in life; he had a kid, he was working himself back into shape, basketball wasn't a lost cause anymore, and he had someone he cared about beside him. He had someone beside him who pushed him without harassing him, who loved him without idolizing him. He felt like he was on level ground for the first time in years.

When it came to Haley, he saw her as a Godsend that he'd never be quite pure or good enough to match up with. His son obviously saw him as an infallible larger-than-life hero, and his friends pretty much came to see him as either a rock or a mess. But with Peyton, he didn't have to consistently be the strong one or the weak one, the nice one or the jerk. He could be everything, all the time, all at once. He had found someone who was so similar and so different to him; someone whose soul seemed to fit playfully with his in a way that at once challenged, comforted, seduced, and engaged him.

He was divorced at twenty three, with a kid and a failed dream. He was living in his jack ass father's old beach house and more or less avoiding his brother and a lot of the outside world. But he knew now that everything that happened had an implicit purpose in it and that regardless of what happened to him now, he'd be all right- because he was happy and he knew who he was.

Nervously clutching a bouquet of flowers that felt stupendously out of place in his hands, Nathan knocked on the door of Peyton's office before ducking inside.

She looked up from her desk and her eyes settled on the flowers with a look of faint amusement.

"Hey." He cleared his throat and walked over to her desk. He offered her the bouquet awkwardly. "Got these for you."

"What for?"

He winced, knowing how cheesy his words would sound. "I was thinking about you."

Peyton played with the petals and grinned. "Nathan, you do realize this is like the first time you've ever brought me flowers right? And it's just because you were thinking of me?"

"Christ, I never gave you flowers when we were dating? I'm such an ass hole." He chuckled nervously.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm beginning to worry you're actually turning into a nice guy."

"Damn. Wouldn't want to be a pussy." Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Better take those back."

He reached forward and she swivelled around in her chair. "You wish." She stuck the flowers on the shelf behind her desk and turned around to give him a quick, indulgent kiss.

"Okay, I wasn't actually just getting you flowers to be nice." Nathan grinned as he pulled away from the kiss. "I just realized that we've never christened this place."

"Nathan, there are a lot of places we've never christened."

"Actually, let's see, shall we? Your place, my place, the bathroom of Tric, the river court, half the rooms of Tree Hill High, your car, my car, the alley behind Brooke's store, the McDonald's by the school, the theatre, the coat check in several restaurants…"

"Shut up, I didn't think we were counting our high school fling."

"Hey, once you fuck in a place once, it's christened forever."

"You're such a manwhore."

He walked around her desk so he could face her unobstructed. "Hey, as I recall you were the one who got off on doing it in public places."

She laughed but didn't deny it.

Nathan leaned in and kissed her lingeringly; his thumb traced circles around her collarbone.

"Mmm. So you just gave me flowers as an excuse to come sleep with me?"

"Every pretty girl deserves pretty flowers," He smiled charmingly.

"Huh. Those flowers weren't that pretty."

"Huh. Guess I chose right."

Peyton smacked him and he laughed. "Come on sexy Sawyer, you can do work later."

"You haven't called me that since the end of the summer of freshman year," Peyton smiled.

"I know." He kissed her again.

"All right Nasty Nathan, I'll bite. But only because violets are my favourite."

"I know." They grinned at each other and Nathan slid down Peyton's body and started undoing her pants. He slid them off as her hands entangled in his hair; her back arched in bliss as his tongue traced patterns that could intoxicate her.

She pulled his shirt off and fumbled with his belt, her own jeans forgotten on the floor. She looped her fingers in his belt loops and pulled his lips to hers familiarly and he let his weight rest against her as they both bent towards the surface of the desk.

"I hope you don't mind that we're going to have sex on top of everything you were just working on." Nathan said, helping her out of her blouse.

His lips were on her breasts; her fingernails digging down with just the right amount of pressure against his back. And then her hands held hard to the edge of the desk and he was in her and it was thoughtlessly good as it so often was with them.

She loved every feeling associated with this. The feel of his weight on her; bare skin on bare skin. She loved that he left his scent lingering on her for hours afterwards and that his skin always felt surprisingly soft. She loved the way he half grunted, half sighed when he approached his climax, and the way he breathed her name like a caress when he finally finished. She loved how he would rest his head against her neck for a moment afterwards, and how he'd always give her a long kiss before either of them would even think about putting their clothes back on.

Nathan gave her that long reaching kiss that she liked so much, and stood up. "Successfully christened."

"Want to write Nathan fucked here somewhere on the desk?" Peyton joked, rubbing her leg across his.

"Nah. Maybe Property of Nathan somewhere on you, though." He teased, grabbing a permanent marker and running it across her thigh.

"I'm going to let you write that since we both know you're my bitch, bitch." Peyton stole the marker out of his hand, hopped off the desk, and scrawled Sawyer's BITCH across Nathan's lower back .

"Fuck, I'm never gonna get that off!" He complained.

She pushed him lightly into her chair and settled on his lap. "You're never gonna get me off either."

"Oh, is that right, twig?" His hands cupped her ass, originally to lift her up, but she shifted so she was rubbing against him and he closed his eyes and his hands just held her in place. "Christ, you know exactly what to do to kill me."

Her hands ran down his pecks and she kissed his throat. "Making you hot makes me hot."

Nathan buried his face in her hair and sighed. "Fuck, Peyton."

"Peyton?" The echo of her name shook her to her core. They said her name exactly the same. The same inflection, the same longing, the same affection. The first was lustful, the second ever so shocked.

She turned around, but she didn't have to. The other Scott brother was standing in her doorway and the look of brokenness she had imagined was a shadow of the crushing heartbreak she saw across his features now.

"Nathan?"

Her name had been sad with shocked hurt, his name with stunned betrayal. And in a paralyzing moment of realization, Peyton saw that Lucas had a bouqet of roses clutched tightly at his side.

That moment felt like eternity.

All was frozen and nothing was right and everything, everything was ruined. The paradise they had salvaged, the companionship, the comfort, the hope- two words, two names, one person had ripped it all to oblivion.

Two words and Lucas was gone from the doorway, his face crumpled in complete despair.

Nathan turned to Peyton, but she was already off of him, already pulling her clothes back on. She had already started to run for the door when he finally found his voice in time to croak, "Peyton?"

She stopped to look at him and he saw in her face everything she had hid from him in the last day.

"Peyton, you're not going to go after him are you? Peyton, you and I…"

But watching the indecision spelled clearly across her face, Nathan felt sixteen years old again, watching as his girlfriend sent secret pining looks over at his brother. He felt sixteen years old again, watching her fight with Brooke over her brother right in the middle of when Nathan was trying his damndest to get back together with her. He felt just as he did when he saw the two of them sending each other those small smiles, where her eyes lit up in a way they rarely did when she looked at him.

And she tore her eyes away from his in the time it takes to yawn; that was how long the indecision lasted. That was how long she had to consider who she wanted to go after, whose comfort she sought. Barely more than a second. That was how much time she spared for him.

He remembered the pain, humiliation, and hurt pride he felt when she chose Lucas, when she wanted Lucas instead, when she dumped him because of Lucas. But the betrayal felt much heavier, much more treacherous now. They were not sixteen. He was not the ass of a boyfriend to her. And now for the first time in his life, he understood the pitiful idiom that nice guys finish last. It hurt him then but it poisoned him now. Peyton would always rather be in Lucas Scott's arms than his own.

She could feel Nathan's hurt gaze on her back as she rushed for the door and she knew that she will never get the searing image of two sets of Scott eyes piercing her with betrayal out of her memory.

She ran for Lucas instinctively. She knew there was nothing else she _could_ do. It was not a choice, it was a compulsion.

Nathan stared at the space she used to be; a shell that has been emptied over and over. The man was gone.

All either could feel was the bitter stranglehold of regret.

_Could you be with him? __**He doesn't catch you like I do  
**__Oh, __**I'm uninvited**__, so unrequited now_

_Words screaming in my head_ Why did you leave?  
_Watching you and him,_ **When it should have been me**

* * *

**AN: **Thank you all for the encouragement :). I won't give up on this story, don't worry- I adore Pathan and Leyton far too much to give up on it.


	6. Try

**Try**

_Then I see you standing there  
Wanting more from me  
And all I can do is try_

Peyton couldn't breathe. She wasn't worrying about what Lucas was thinking, she wasn't agonizing over how hurt Nathan looked- her mind had shut down and all she was doing was acting on instinct.

"Luke!" She called out helplessly as she bolted after Lucas's quickly retreating back. He hadn't been running, so she caught up with him shortly; her chest heavy with dread.

She caught his arm. He shook her off violently but stopped moving away. Lucas was breathing heavily and for the moment she was glad his back was to her.

"Lucas, I am so, so, sorry- please-"

"You're sorry?" He turned around abruptly, his expression ugly with anguish and rage. "You're sorry?"

Peyton reached for his hand but he ripped away from her touch. "Don't touch me." His voice was low and toxic.

The way he was looking at her now made her shatter inside. His eyes were dead and colder than ice.

"Luke-"

"How could you?" He interrupted. "How the hell _could you_?" The anger in his voice had given way to pure brokenness. "I thought we were making progress. I thought-" He laughed bitterly, "God, you played me well, I'll give you that."

"How can you say that?" She whispered.

"How can I-how can I-" He repeated incredulously, "Peyton, I just walked in on you doing my brother. The same day you show up in my bedroom, begging me to hold you. I knew it wouldn't be easy to get you back, but did you have to be so vindictive? So cruel?"

Peyton frowned. "I didn't do this to hurt you, Luke."

"Really? Because it seems like the perfect revenge. I hurt you so you found a way to hurt me back. But honestly, you could've chosen anyone to screw and it would've done the job. But Nathan? Christ, that's Haley's husband. That's my brother. How the hell could you?"

"Ex husband." Her voice was small.

"They have a kid, Peyton." Lucas was indignant. "How could you do that to Haley?"

"They're divorced, Lucas. And I am so sorry that you had to see that, but I wasn't betraying Haley."

"They had a fight. And you were just waiting in the wings, weren't you? God, Peyton. I thought you and me… I thought we were getting better."

"We were!"

"So why'd you jump on Nathan, then? You can justify all you want, but you and I both know you've betrayed everyone tonight."

"She didn't jump on me, for one. And Haley and I _are_ divorced, Lucas." Nathan's emotionless voice carried into the room and Peyton held herself back from wincing at the cool mask that had fallen upon Nathan's face. "But I gotta apologize to you, I guess. I had no idea you two were trying to get back together." He looked at her for just a second as he said that and his eyes were black as night. It would have hurt less if he had just hit her.

"I know you two have a sexual history, but I never thought you'd sink to this." Luke said, eyeing the two of them with disgust. "Nathan, I thought you changed. I know you used to hop on a new girl the second you had a break-up, but we both know you and Haley will work things out. It's despicable to use your latest fight as an excuse to screw someone else. And it's so fucking selfish of you to do that with Peyton. This is the single worst thing you've ever done to me."

"I'm sorry, Lucas." Peyton said again, head bowed.

Nathan looked at her as she meekly apologized and felt a new flash of raw pain. Clenching his jaw tightly, another wave of numbness coated him as he resolved to be stronger.

"Look. You and her were over. Me and Haley were over. No harm, no foul." Nathan simplified. "Sorry I didn't know that you guys weren't finished your epic love saga yet."

"And I'm sorry you really can't keep it in your pants." Lucas scowled. "You know, I gave you the benefit of the doubt with Carrie, but man, you really did mess around with her, didn't you?"

Nathan's eyes flashed as he lunged at his brother, his fist aching to connect with flesh. Peyton grabbed him and hoarsely told him to stop.

"Don't touch me." Nathan said in the same tone Lucas had used earlier. He shook Peyton off forcefully enough to make her stumble backwards. "Fuck this." He turned around to leave.

"Peyton, it was just this one time, right? You let your whatever get the better of you and made a mistake. But it was just this time, right? I mean, since high school, at least." The tiny inflection of hope in Lucas's voice made Peyton turn away from watching Nathan.

She looked into those blue eyes of his, the eyes that had lost the anger and accusation and now just carried a reckless hopefulness that she couldn't ignore. She hesitated for a moment; a moment in which Nathan paused unnoticed, a moment in which she recognized that the truth would break what was left of Lucas.

"Yeah." The moment ended, Lucas visibly flooded with relief, and Nathan kept walking- the pain in him pushing him to a point of no return.

"God, Peyton. This hurts so much. But I love you so damn much, you know?" Lucas's arms flew around her in an emotional embrace that Peyton couldn't relax into.

"I know." She choked out. He was warm and he was hurt and she felt cold, just cold.

"You can have her, Lucas. It was just sex." Nathan's tone was indifferent; it took a lot of effort for him to keep the bitterness out of it.

Peyton wasn't facing Nathan, and even if she had been she would've seen nothing but his back. But if he had turned around, for just a moment; and if she had turned around, for just a moment, he would have seen her face crumple into heartbreak at his words and she would have seen his face twist into crushing grief.

She cried then and she couldn't stop. It felt like her heart was imploding.

But he kept walking, and she didn't leave Lucas's arms.

-

"Daddy, you look sad."

Nathan cursed himself for not being able to completely cram his emotions into a box in his head, cursed himself for letting his mind wander. He looked at his son and put an arm around him comfortingly.

"Don't worry, little man. I'm fine."

Jamie was ridiculously wise for a five year old. He gave his father a 'yeah right' look.

"I'm just tired." Nathan smiled.

It had only been a day since Nathan walked away from his brother holding onto Peyton and he knew that if it wasn't for the fact that he was a father now and could no longer have the luxury of throwing temper tantrums, he'd have locked himself in a room and gotten absolutely drunk. He wanted to forget the searing pain in his chest but the time for childishly lashing out was over. So he buried his feelings, something he was rather good at, and tried to forget that he had tasted peace.

He and Haley had stopped avoiding each other. They even made eye contact and acknowledged each other now when they ran into each other or when it was time for Jamie to switch parents. He wondered if Lucas was right about how his act with Peyton had been an ultimate betrayal to Haley. He had never stood for the rules that stated you had to wait a certain amount of time before moving on from a break up and he didn't care if that made him callous. He and Haley were over- and it had been her choice. He had every right to fuck anyone he wanted to. But meeting her eyes still made a spasm of guilt go off in his stomach because he knew she wouldn't see it that way. And he knew that hearing of her getting physical with some guy would hurt him quite a bit.

He hated that things had to be complicated. He hated that Lucas's words had made him ashamed of the little piece of happiness he had managed to carve out of the charred ruins of his life. He hated that Peyton had run for Lucas the moment he showed that he wanted her to. He hated that he had been stupid enough to let himself care about someone again. After everything Nathan had been through, he should have learned by now that if you didn't keep things shallow, you'd fucking drown.

So he played some ball with his son and smiled at his ex-wife and did not care that he was turning into stone.

He half-thought his brother would vindictively tell everyone about him and Peyton just to cause shit, but surprisingly he hadn't even told Haley yet.

Darkly, Nathan figured that was because Lucas was too damn busy fucking his girl to tell anyone anything. _His girl_. God, he didn't even know if he meant Nathan's girl or Lucas's girl. Fuck, she had always been Lucas's girl.

Lucas's girl was nothing of the sort. Peyton found that she had absolutely nothing to say to Luke. Once the hugging and the forgiving had finished, she didn't know what to say to him. He had been chasing her for weeks and she found it jarring that she had just been begging for his forgiveness after all this time of him being the one that messed up.

He had knocked on her door and asked her to take a walk with him, and she had obliged.

"These were for you." He had said, offering her the slightly crushed roses he had brought with him to the office.

"They're beautiful." She said distantly.

"Why did you- I'm sorry, I don't want to make things crazy again, but I just have to ask… how did you and Nathan-?"

Peyton was silent for a moment, but his eyes were expectant. "We've been hanging out a lot lately. He surprised me at the office and one thing led to another."

"I don't understand. You were so emotionally charged with me the other morning in my room, how could one thing lead to another with him?"

"Lucas, sometimes these things just happen, okay?" She looked at his dissatisfied eyes and snapped, "How did you end up screwing Nikki hours after you claimed you wanted me?" God, this was the second time she had compared Nathan to Nikki and she felt a wave of anger at herself for doing so.

"I did that because both girls I wanted to be with had just walked out of my life. I-"

"_Both_ girls you wanted. Yeah. You don't get to stand here and make me feel like a whore, Luke."

"I'm really not trying to." He slipped his hand over hers. "It just hurt like hell to see you like that. I want to be with you more than anything else in this world." Luke bent down and kissed her. She pulled away and started back for her house.

"Lucas. This doesn't mean we're automatically together."

"Peyton, come on. You want to be with me, right? And I want to be with you. We've both made mistakes. Let's just erase everything and start over fresh."

"I don't know if we can." God, did she even want to? Did he really think she could forget the nights she stayed up crying over him, the sacrifices she made for him?

"Peyt, you were so lonely you were taken in by the first guy that came around. You don't have to be lonely any more."

It hurt her to have him assume that Nathan was nothing but a cheap fuck; a warm body there to scratch an itch and to remind her she wasn't alone. But she couldn't correct him.

"We're bad for each other, Lucas. We completely bull doze over each other's hearts."

"Only when we're not together. Don't you see? We're miserable when we're apart but don't you remember how completely amazing we were together? How happy?" His eyes bore into her in a way that made her tingle deep inside and she did remember.

She thought of the moment he told her he wanted to be with her when all his dreams came true, she remembered the pure perfection of the kiss that followed. She had never been happier than when she was with him and that was the honest truth. But she had never been hurt by anyone nearly as badly as he had hurt her. She had decided once that the ups were not worth the downs but when he looked at her like that it was so hard not to change her mind.

He touched his lips to hers, his hand lightly cupping her face. The reserve in her broke and she melded against his form, letting nostalgia fill her as they entered her house and his hands trailed down to the hem of her shirt.

Didn't he care that she had just been with his brother the day before? Didn't she? But his lips were pleasantly warm and his fingers so, so loving as he lifted her shirt over her head. There was no lust in his eyes when he looked at her, just a simple imploring love. And she stared up at him, watched as he took his own shirt off, watched as he leaned over her in a way that was painfully familiar. She felt sixteen again, sitting on a hotel bed, staring in wonder as her best friend's boyfriend looked at her like she was the only person in the entire world that mattered.

He kissed a trail down her torso and back up again and re-focussed on her neck; a formula he unconsciously did every time the two had done this.

"We shouldn't do this." She found her voice at last. He looked up, a confused frown on his face. "Lucas, I was just with Nathan. This is just… it feels…"

"It's right, Peyton. You screwed Nathan, but that's not what we'll be doing. God, I've missed making love to you." His fingers entwined with hers over her head and she wanted to stop him, knew that she should stop him, but no one on this planet looked at her like he did. Like she was divine; like he was dreaming.

"I love you," She whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him with all the longing four years had bottled up in her.

"I've always loved you." Lucas said solemnly, his eyes crinkling at the corners like they always did. And she knew he meant it.

When he pulled off her jeans, he stared at her legs for a moment until she followed his gaze. Property of Nathan was still marked across the skin.

"No one will ever treat you like an object again," he said softly. She wanted to cry.

When she felt him inside her, she stared at the ceiling and became acutely aware of the noises the bed made as he rocked back and forth against her; acutely aware of the short little exhales of air he breathed as he moved. He wasn't looking at her. His eyes were closed in ecstasy, beads of sweat gathering at his forehead.

She looked at the tattoo he had once gotten with Brooke, watched the taut muscles in his arms as they held him up over her. She saw the dark bags under his eyes and the uneven stubble across his neck and jaw. Peyton moved her hand to sift through his blond hair, the hair she used to long to run her hands through.

He pulled out and came explosively over her bare stomach with a throaty moan. She looked at the sticky substance as he rolled off of her, panting.

"That was amazing." He breathed, kissing her forehead adoringly.

She wordlessly wiped her stomach with several tissues, not really understanding the self-loathing building inside her as she touched the cum.

"Did you…?" Lucas asked, turning to face her. He never did say things like orgasm or cum. He never said anything that was vulgar. He was Lucas Scott, the golden boy who could do no wrong. His hands were already tracing gentle patterns on her hips and he started to move his head down her body. "I want to make this good for you, too." He smiled.

She stopped him with a peck on the cheek. "No, it's okay, I did," She lied.

He wrapped his arms around her and held him snugly against him. "God, Peyton. I love you so much."

The words echoed in her head without impact. Why did she feel so dirty?

Lucas dozed off holding her, but she wriggled out of his loose grip and threw her clothes back on. She suddenly felt horrified at everything that she had let happen; looking at the perfect blond angel asleep in her sheets made her want to kill herself.

After he had woken up and put his clothes back on, he had taken her hand in such a happy, carefree way that made a lump develop in her throat.

"True love always." He murmured against her neck.

-

Later that night, Haley and Lucas took a walk around the river court. He was absolutely intoxicated with happiness that he and Peyton were working things out and she was happy for him.

"Hales, if I can work it out with Peyton after everything that's happened, don't you think you can give your marriage one more try?" He gently nudged her as they approached the familiar picnic tables and a familiar brunette sitting on the table.

She looked at Nathan, who hadn't noticed them yet, and how desolate his form was.

And she looked at Lucas, who carried so much idealism and hope for a better world in him that she remembered what it was like to have that kind of hope.

"I should talk to him, shouldn't I?" She smiled wryly. Luke nodded. She gave him an affectionate hug and started towards Nathan alone. Lucas watched her go with a smile on his face as he saw that maybe everyone really could go back to how they once were.

He walked back to Peyton's and told her that their friends were working through their issues. The moment he went into the washroom to take a shower, she snatched her phone up and ran outside, a feeling of terror clutched in her chest.

She called him without thinking about what she would say.

"Hello?" He had answered while in the middle of laughing about something.

"She's there, isn't she? You're making up with Haley as we speak." She didn't mean to say something so accusatory but her feelings got the better of her.

"Not that it's any of your business anymore, but yeah."

"You lied to me. You said you were never going to-"

"I learned from the best, pot. I wouldn't get into a list if I were you. You have no right to talk to me like this."

"I care about you, Nathan."

"Real good way of showing it. I'm done with you."

The click was deafening. She started sobbing and she couldn't stop. Knowing she could never let Lucas see her like this, she scrawled a note about going to Tric and drove over to the beach house. She had to talk to him.

She had to wait several hours. When his car finally pulled up, she sprang up from the steps and ran over to the drive way.

"You said you were never getting back with her."

He laughed. "And you said you wouldn't be with me if you wanted Lucas."

"So you're just going to go back to your family like nothing happened?"

"You mean the family you used as an excuse to cover up the fact that you wanted to be with Lucas again?" Nathan raised his eyebrows. "Seriously, that's a new low, even for a skank like you. Using my son as a cover story?"

"I _was_ concerned about Jamie!"

"You were concerned about getting back into my brother's pants."

"Guess we'll be better off, huh. Mrs Lucas Scott and Mr Haley James." His harsh words brought out the bitch in her. "The world is right again."

"Yeah. Oh well. I'm glad I had something to get my rocks off with while Haley got over herself." Nathan shrugged.

"I slept with Lucas today." Peyton shot out. "And it wasn't the in-out fucking we did. It was making love. Guess he's got you beat in more than just his career's success."

Nathan's eyes darkened and he felt his armour take a heavy hit. "Didn't take long, did it? I shouldn't be surprised. You always were easy."

"He saw your marker statement on my leg, by the way. And he told me that he at least isn't going to treat me like an object." She didn't know why she was saying this shit. She knew Nathan had never seen her like that.

"Hey, if Lucas wants to pretend like you're more than a cheap fuck, power to him. I see people as they are." His words were not really doing that much damage to her, until, "You know, I occasionally pictured Haley when we'd fuck and I've never pictured you while doing someone else."

Peyton clenched her jaw to keep herself from letting her eyes water. "You said you had feelings for me."

"Yeah. Horny feelings. You have tits and a pussy." He said emotionlessly, a smirk at his lips. "You said you could see yourself falling in love with me. Guess sex makes you come up with some really stupid shit." Nathan turned to walk into his house. "I hope you and Lucas are really happy together. With your whiney, albino children."

Peyton couldn't do this anymore. She knew if she kept coming up with things to hurt him, he'd keep escalating it and they'd end up debilitating each other.

"What would you have done?" She asked him. "If it was Haley that walked in on us? You would have followed her too."

"I would have waited for you to get dressed and we would have faced it together. I would not be begging forgiveness." Nathan looked over his shoulder at her. "Because I'm not a weak spineless jelly fish."

"So what if I made a mistake, Nathan? What if I realize that now. What if I don't want Lucas?" She blurted out desperately, allowing vulnerability to be revealed.

He kept walking. "Then give Junk or Fergie a call. I'm sure they'll fuck you."

She stood there dumbstruck as he closed the door behind him without so much as a glance back. She had made her choice when she ran for Lucas and she could see now that Nathan was not the forgiving type. She had made her choice and now she would have to live with it.

She wished Nathan could be the kind of person who would have waited for her to come around but she knew she never would have fallen for him if he had been.

She had woken up yesterday morning wishing she cared less for Lucas and more for Nathan, and now she wished for the opposite. There was no going back but she felt a cold chill inside her when she thought of the words _Mrs Lucas Scott. _

So she would go home and lay down with Lucas and listen to his always sweet words.

So she would try to smile and fall back into the contentment she once shared with the man, try to ease the chill.

So she would think back to all the laughter and love that had consumed the two of them, all the amazing qualities that they had together that had shaped two epic love stories.

But she would look at him and he wasn't the boy she loved in high school and she wasn't that girl.

But his touch felt like poison now, his words knives.

But he was the one she had given it all for, time and time again. He was the one she chose over every single person she ever cared about. It felt like such a cheap prize, such a foolish trade.

She couldn't breathe in his arms. She would tell Lucas that she couldn't start over. He would look at her completely blown away by confusion and she would not let him touch her when she started crying.

_  
All of the things we want each other to be  
We never will be_

_And that's you, baby  
This is me, baby_


	7. Drunken Ballad

**Drunken Ballad**

_Like a scab that won't heal, just another sore  
Lost face in the crowd such a lonely bore_

**9pm.**

Peyton could not honestly say she was surprised at herself. She had a habit of building people up in her head, of desperately wanting to be with someone that circumstances rendered it impossible to be with. She had a habit of realizing her mind had tricked her once the path to said person became attainable; a habit of realizing she had been chasing smoke and mirrors. This was not the first time she had opened her eyes and seen that the person she was in love with from afar for months or years on end was not the same as the actual, solid person standing in front of her, ready to be with her at long last. She loved the idea, not the person. It happened with Jake, and it had happened with Lucas more than once. She would play the martyr until they realized they needed to be with her, and then the moment she opened her arms to them she would realize her mistake.

Peyton was a fool. She cursed herself for not having learned from her past stupidities. She honestly thought she had actually learned and grown. And she had, for a while. She really _did_ know that accepting Lucas back into her life romantically would be toxic. Or at least she had known that when Nathan was at her side, disabling the drugged fantasy that she sometimes let develop. God, what had she done?

Sitting on the floor of her room, back to the door, she thought about how level she became when she was with Nathan. There were no preconceptions and no bubble of falsity. She was herself, no bull shit, and she saw the world clearly as it was without sugar coating or dramatized angst. And she had thrown that away for a pipe dream that never existed and never _could_ exist.

But she couldn't just sit and mope. She had done far too much of that already. She wasn't a sullen teenager and it was time to stop acting like one. Sighing, Peyton picked herself up off the ground and left the fortress of surrender her room had become.

She had been ignoring Lucas's phone calls out of a simple cowardly loss for words and she knew that wasn't fair to him. He was an idiot a lot of the time and an ass sometimes, but he was not a bad person and he did genuinely care about her. Or at least he thought he did. She morosely believed that his love for her was the same as hers for him- it was overwhelming emotion for a person that didn't exist.

Walking out of her room, Peyton immediately ran into Brooke who was on her way to the door.

"You've been looking a lot like the moody PMS-ing Peyton lately," Brooke cocked her head to the side as she faced her blonde friend. "You okay?"

"I promise I'll tell you all about it soon." Peyton smiled tiredly.

"Orrr, you could tell us about it now."

"Us?"

Brooke grinned and opened the door; a cheerful looking Haley stood in wait. "We're having a girl's night in. You know you want to join us."

Haley brandished a bag and smiled tentatively. "Yeah, come on Peyton. I'm armed with movies and microwave popcorn."

"And I've got an artillery of liquor that could intoxicate an elephant," Brooke winked.

The idea was not even a little tempting. Well, getting drunk and watching movies with Brooke would actually be a lot of fun, but Haley's presence completely unsettled Peyton. She hated herself for it, but seeing Nathan's old flame ignited a surge of indignant grouchiness that she had no right to feel. It wasn't like she owned Nathan. He had more of a right to be with Haley than with her and she knew that. They made more sense together; a happy little family. The image made her want to clench her fists.

"That sounds like fun guys, but-"

"Oh no you don't, you've been practically a ghost for weeks and a hermit for the last few days; you need this." Brooke cut her off.

"We haven't hung out in ages, or even talked." Haley chimed in persuasively. "And since I'm not drinking much, we can just kick back and laugh at Brooke."

"Oh please, my girl P Sawyer knows how to throw back a few." Brooke scoffed, kicked the door closed, and hooked an arm around one of Peyton's. "Now, sit your chicken ass down and let yourself have a bit of fun."

Peyton sighed internally. She knew that if she tried to get away without a decent excuse, she'd look like a bitch. But she hadn't been well bonded with Haley for a long time. Even before she forged a deep connection with Nathan, Peyton had always felt that Haley was Team Lindsay and resented her for it. Lindsay had become one of Haley's closest friends and that in itself felt like a girl code violation. Combine that with the unavoidable fact that Peyton had been boinking Haley's recent ex for the last almost two months and it wasn't hard to see why Peyton just wasn't comfortable with the idea of sitting down for idle prattle with the woman.

"Since I obviously can't get away, you better have some tools to make long island iced tea, Davis." Peyton forced a smile.

"Please. Chase is a bartender now, remember? I've got connections and I'm not afraid to use them for some free booze."

"…Chase gives you free stuff?" Peyton raised her eyebrows doubtfully.

"…Um, kind of. He's still a patsy for my infamous charm and I may knick a bottle or two while he's distracted."

"You have a multi-million corporation named after yourself and you stoop to stealing alcohol from your high school boyfriend?" Haley laughed.

"Hey, just 'cause I'm rich doesn't mean I'm just going to throw it away," Brooke said.

"Yeah because the way you bribed the original owner of this house out of moving out within the day totally proves that." Peyton replied easily.

"Oh damn you and your use of the past." Brooke laughed. "Okay, so I don't actually steal the stuff. I tuck the money for it into Chase's jacket pocket."

"You really are something, Brooke." Peyton grinned, leaning into her friend for a hug. "And I've missed that."

Popping in a generic comedy and tossing back some hard liquor, Peyton tried to relax. Maybe this night wouldn't be that bad.

"So, you and Nathan are good now?" Brooke said to Haley.

Or maybe this night would be horrible.

"Yeah, we talked it out, worked through our misunderstandings. It felt really great, you know? I'm relieved."

Peyton drained her glass and adeptly refilled it.

"And, speaking of fixing things… I hear you and Luke are well on your way to making up." Haley beamed.

Oh, God. Brooke squealed and hastily turned to face her. "Bitch, you don't tell me _anything_!"

"We…talked. But please don't get excited, it's not like I'm going to walk down the aisle or anything." Peyton shifted uncomfortably in her seat and wondered how much she could say out loud.

"I just knew that fool would wake up and realize what he was missing." Brooke said proudly.

"Brooke, seriously."

"No, Luke was pretty pumped Peyton. Though he did say you weren't certain what you wanted?"

Peyton couldn't help but send an aggravated look at Haley. She really just wanted this topic to go away.

"I thought Lucas was pretty much the only thing you wanted, period." Brooke quirked her eyebrow.

"You know me, indecisive and idiotic me." Peyton shrugged, downing the second glass.

"Well, whatever you decide, power to you. You're too good for someone who takes that long to open their eyes anyways." Brooke nodded supportively, easily keeping pace with Peyton's drinking.

"I disagree." Haley said, frowning. "I mean, Peyton you tried everything you could to get him to choose you over Lindsay, and now that he has I just don't think it's fair for you to string him along with indecision. You chased him down and he's saying yes, so why aren't you?"

"How is Lindsay, anyways?" Peyton said edgily.

She had the decency to look uncomfortable. "She's doing well… look, Peyton, I hope you don't feel like I picked sides-"

"But you did pick sides. Hers."

"I just wanted my best friend to be happy. And what you do to him- that sure isn't happiness. You only seem to want him when you can't have him."

"Which is why I'm not walking down that path again."

"You're killing him!" Haley said angrily. "How can you be so childish, so selfish?"

"He said he hated me. He blamed everything on me. He destroyed my heart. But of course, Archangel Lucas Scott isn't ever selfish or childish, oh no. It's all on me."

"Guys, this is getting seriously out of hand…" Brooke looked alarmed.

"You have a real chance of being happy with him. You should take it. Stop torturing him and stop torturing yourself. You've always been so self destructive." Haley wasn't about to drop it.

"Maybe I can't be happy with him." Peyton snapped.

"…speaking of, tell us about this mystery guy you've been seeing!" Brooke flew in, desperate to change the topic to lighter things. She turned to Haley, hopeful smile on her face. "Peyton's been secretly seeing someone."

"While Luke's been breaking down your door. That's classy." Haley's voice was thick with judgement.

"I'm not seeing him any more." Peyton stared at Haley. "And don't look at me like that, I wasn't with anyone when I was with him. I wasn't cheating or anything. Lucas wanted nothing to do with me when I started what I started and maybe I was happy for once. Maybe being away from the damn burden of the TLA crap actually made me feel free for the first time in years and maybe I don't need to hear your holier than thou judgements, Haley James Scott."

"I just don't get how you can not know who you want to be with. It isn't hard. Either you want Luke or you don't. You don't have to twist him up with this confusion."

"Sorry that I've fucked and been in love with more than one man in my life." Peyton snapped back.

"Don't you sit there and try to make me feel like there's something wrong with me just because I'm not a-"

"Whore? Slut? Say it, Hales, I know you want to."

"Okay, that's it. Both of you, shut up. Haley, we all know you put Luke first, always have, and that's fine. Peyton, nobody's attacking you so put your claws away." Brooke interrupted again. "Victoria's been eating my ass lately and I really need a nice, easy girl's night and you two are my best girls so stop trying to rip each other to shreds."

"Sorry, what with my pending divorce and the possibility of being a single mother and almost getting fired from my job, I'm a bit on edge." Haley said.

"Sorry, what with my almost fiancé setting fire to my heart ten times over and the feeling of total alienation from everyone I know, I'm also a bit on edge." Peyton snarked.

Ignoring the heavy sarcasm and spite in both of the women's tones, Brooke said, "Great. Apologies accepted."

A few minutes of surly silence passed before Haley sincerely apologized. "Look, Peyton, I'm sorry. I have no business saying those things to you. Of course I don't think you're a-"

"It's fine, Haley. Really." She tried to smile. "I'm sorry too."

"We're friends right? Time to start acting like it." Haley's eyes were warm and Peyton's insides went cold. Ugh. Her smile wavered and she downed yet another glass. If she couldn't escape from this night, she sure as hell wasn't spending it sober.

-

**9:30pm**

Across town, Nathan had been trying to sulk in peace when Skillz steamrolled into the beach house and plopped himself across from him.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, both with expectant looks on their faces.

Finally, Nathan caved. "Dude, what?"

"Because I'm a good observant friend, I've noticed that both you and Peyton have been miserable little piles of crap the past few days and Luke's just been confused as hell."

"How could you have noticed that? That's only been true for less than a week."

"I am a man easily bored." Skillz shrugged. "Now tell papa why that skinny lovable artist isn't sitting her bony ass down on top of you right now."

Nathan tersely grunted that he didn't know what Skillz was talking about since he and Peyton were just friends.

"Don't make me smack you, Scott."

He chuckled and relented and the whole sordid tale came out.

"Bitch, you need a party." Skillz concluded.

"…You hear all that and that's what you've got to say?" Nate said incredulously. "I just told you I've been screwing the love of Lucas's life ever since my wife sent me divorce papers and that's really all you've got to say?"

"Anyone not completely self obsessed could see you guys were hot for each other. I was never surprised, man. You've been playing the responsible grown-up for too long. You hurt right now and brotha Skillz knows the best cure for that is to party."

The brunette ran a hand through his hair and resigned himself to letting his friend do what he wanted to. Everyone knew this was what Skillz did and there was no stopping him.

Twenty minutes later, Nathan kicked himself for not realizing 'you need a party' did not mean 'I'm finding a party for us' but rather 'I'm volunteering your house right now'. A line of guys he knew sidled into his house, each carrying either a six pack, a bottle, or food.

"Guys night." Skillz shrugged enthusiastically at Nathan's expression.

The weariness in Nathan's face was quickly replaced by tense displeasure when a familiar blond that shared his DNA ducked inside behind Mouth.

Skillz saw him too. "Shit, sorry man. I didn't invite him. Mouth must have," He whispered.

"Bring on the brotherly love." Nathan muttered.

Skillz started to walk over to them when Nathan grabbed his sleeve. "Lucas doesn't know. And as far as any one else is concerned, it never happened okay?"

"I won't say anything but you're trippin' if you really think you can forget about twig man." He shrugged. He again started to move away but again, Nate grabbed his arm.

"Dude, you set this all up, you're not leaving me alone." He muttered anxiously.

"You're a needy little white boy, aren't you?" Skillz laughed. "Aight man. Seriously, try to have some fun."

Five beers, two vodka shots, and one jager bomb later Nathan found himself laughing with his friends at some piece of brawn getting thrown down in the fighting ring on pay-per-view. He could feel a pleasant buzz and was actually enjoying himself. He made a mental note to thank Skillz for knowing exactly what he needed.

And then Lucas sat down next to him, cracking open a fresh beer and tossing one to his brother as well. "Hey, man. Mouth texted me saying Skillz was ordering a pick me up night for you. I know it's weird of me to be here, but you're my brother."

"I didn't think you'd want to help pick me up." Nathan shrugged, ignoring the bubble of anger he felt just being near the man who had snatched away his joy like it was his own birth right.

"You were lonely, she was lonely; it hurts man, but hey I wasn't there for her and I haven't been there for you so I can't really blame either of you. You were going through a really tough time." Lucas waited until Nathan was looking at him. "Nathan, listen to me. I forgive you."

He wanted to give him the finger and tell him to fuck himself but instead Nathan nodded and accepted the half-hug Lucas offered him.

"Seriously man, things are going to work out. You and Haley, me and Peyton. We're going to live the dream."

"Stop saying that, Luke. You'll regret it if you don't."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Just don't fuck it up this time, okay? With Peyton. Don't fuck it up again."

"You either. The circus you put Haley through sometimes, it'd be funny if it didn't hurt her so much man."

"Yeah. Seriously. If you break Peyton again, I'm not so sure she'll be able to fix herself again." Nathan brushed off the circus comment. He had long since come to terms with the fact that his brother would always think Haley could do no wrong, long since accepted that he'd be the scapegoat. But as angry as he was at the stupid blonde woman that had pretty much saved his heart only to crush it herself, he knew that if his brother hurt her again he'd destroy him.

"Glad both the women we love have us to watch their backs, I guess." Lucas said, noticing the edge in Nathan's voice but too buzzed to really think about why it was there.

"Let's get trashed together. I have the feeling this is gonna be the last time we'll get the chance."

"Yeah, being an adult sucks." Luke agreed. That wasn't what Nathan meant, but he chugged his beer alongside Lucas anyways. What else could he do?

-

**10:30pm**

Brooke was lying spread eagled across the living room floor when her cell phone trilled in her pocket. She giggled as she fished it out and snorted loudly upon reading the text.

"Mouth says Skillz was trying to throw a cheer-Nathan-up party and now Nathan and Luke are dancing shirtless on his kitchen counter while Skillz is singing at the top of his lungs in the back yard."

"Geez, some people just never grow up, do they?" Peyton shook her head disapprovingly. Haley and Brooke paused to look at her and both exploded in laughter.

"What?" Peyton asked in confusion, chips falling out from under her shirt as she leaned forward on the table she had been leaning upside down on. "What?"

-

**10:33pm**

"The girls are having a drunk night in too," Mouth informed the dancing Scott brothers, shouting to be heard over the raucous laughter.

"No kidding?" Luke spun around too quickly and banged his head on a cabinet but paid it no mind. "Dude, we should mergeee the two."

"That's not a good idea, bro." Nathan laughed.

"_You're _not a good idea." Lucas responded nonsensically. He was already dialling Haley.

-

**10:35pm**

"You are drunk off your ass." Haley rolled her eyes quickly after she answered her phone. "No, we're not going over there! Because you're acting like a bunch of frat boys. No, I'm dead sober because I'm not a total idiot. Lucas. _Lucas._ Ugh, try not to kill yourself."

"Did the guys just extend an invite?" Brooke asked, still on the carpet.

"We're not going."

"C'mon Haley, all you've had to drink is one glass of wine an hour ago. You're good to drive."

"This was supposed to be girls night in!"

"But Nate and Luke are drunk dancing. You and I both know how crappy those two are at general movement." Brooke wheedled.

"We'll go when you're slightly more sober." Haley raised her eyebrows.

"What, afraid momma's gonna get herself some?" Brooke crossed her arms.

"Honey, unless you want to climb into bed with Nathan's basketball friends or Skillz, I don't think you running around drunk and horny off your ass is a good idea in that situation."

"Skillz is pretty fine, you know. Bevin had the right idea."

"Okay, I'm cutting you off."

-

**11:45**

Haley was half-amused, half-exasperated as she drove through the quiet streets with Brooke rambling about nothing in the passenger's side and Peyton mellowed out in the backseat. Brooke had snuck drinks anytime Haley had left the room and Peyton had long since become too distracted to understand where they were going or what that meant.

As Haley was about to turn into a different street, she suddenly made a surprised noise and pulled the car over.

"Hmmphh?" Brooke asked quizzically.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" Haley ignored Brooke and directed her question to the dark street.

Nathan and Lucas were walking along, still shirtless and still very drunk.

Nathan was the one who answered. "When you said you weren't coming over, Luke decided to go to you guys. And since there was no chance in hell any of us would let him drive in his condition, he decided to walk. And I knew he'd end up eaten by a pack of cougars if he went alone so I went with."

"Youuuu sound like you're making too much sense for a guy that's been drinkin." Brooke pointed her finger accusingly.

Nathan laughed. "Hey, I just carry my liquor well. Not all of us act like four year olds."

"Hey!" Lucas glared.

"That's all well and good, but you guys are only like three blocks from the beach house and it's been over an hour since we called." Haley pointed out.

Both brothers burst out in laughter.

"Sorry. Just 'cause I'm not acting like a four year old doesn't mean I'm not feeling the booze." Nathan grinned crookedly.

To demonstrate, Lucas nudged his brother lightly and the movement sent him stumbling into the car. They both snorted again in giddy amusement.

"Man, you'd have died out here if we hadn't showed up." Brooke clapped. "We're kind of like your personal Mecca."

Haley sighed. "Just get in."

They both ducked in on opposite sides of the car, not realizing Peyton was in the back seat.

"Oh, hey!" Lucas grinned from her right.

"Peyton." Nathan exhaled sharply from her left.

"I'm dizzy." Peyton complained from the middle, refusing to look at either man.

"I love you, babe." Lucas said happily, throwing an arm around her.

"Don't." She could feel her head clearing and she didn't like it. She wriggled out of his hold and stole a glance at Nathan. He was staring out the window, his jaw clenched.

And then it was just like it had been with Lucas looking confused, Peyton tormented, and Nathan sullen.

"Shit, I'm going to hurl." Luke suddenly blurted.

Haley threw on the brakes. "Not in my freshly cleaned car you're not!" Both women in the front climbed out and half carried the blond boy to the side of the road, safely away from Haley's car, Brooke still chattering away cheerfully about nothing.

In the silence of the car, Peyton swallowed and looked at Nathan again. He had been looking at her but quickly turned his gaze back to the window.

"Nate…" She was still pressed closely to him from her position in the bitch seat and she was aware of how warm he felt at her side and how very unclothed his torso was.

"Let's not do this." Nathan leaned back into the head rest.

"We both reek of liquor and we don't have much time before they get back in here." Peyton said. Her eyes drank in the sad expression on his face and she couldn't stop her hand from touching his arm. "Nathan- I'm-"

"Don't. Just don't." He finally met her gaze.

"But-"

"Don't make me say something else to hurt you. Please." His eyes implored her. "I don't want to. Don't make me do it."

She opened her mouth to say something back but the moment was over. Lucas fell back into the car and Haley sighed about how disgusting puke was while Brooke stuffed the remainder of her pack of napkins back in her purse.

Peyton wanted to ask Nathan if they could ever be on good terms again. She wanted to ask him if what she did was unforgivable, if their friendship was buried. She wanted to beg for forgiveness and wrap her arms around him. She wanted to tell him that he had made her feel something real and that she would always love him for that.

Instead, she clamped down on her mouth and stared straight ahead.

He had asked her not to make him say another hurtful thing to her and she knew that anything she said to him, any apology or question, any hope or sentiment, would be met with barbed anger. She was hurt enough as it was. She was not ready to throw herself back into Nathan's cruel line of fire.

Nathan watched Peyton out of the corner of his eye and wished that she had said something more, wished that her eyes hadn't clouded over with fear for what fresh wound he'd promised to deliver. He hated her right now and he hated the feel of her touching him, hated how close the two were forced to sit, hated every word that came from her mouth and every movement she made. But he still wanted to know what she had to say to him, what she could possibly come up with that she thought would dull the pain she had inflicted.

He hated her for being too scared to say her piece and he hated himself both for wanting to know and for feeling the need to hurt her enough so that she couldn't say another word.

-

**1am**

Lucas had been running around the house all night and had finally tracked down Peyton.

But she was exhausted at this point, so exhausted. "Yes. I've been avoiding your calls. Yes, I've been running from you. I never wanted to have to come out and say it but I can't do this any more, Lucas. I made a mistake when I thought we were meant for each other. We both have to wake up, okay?"

"My fiancée left me because she was sure you and I were meant for each other." Lucas said bluntly, anger bubbling to the surface.

"Yeah. Lindsay left you and you tried to get her back and _then_ you came back to me. After she left you. Just like before, Brooke left you and you tried to get her back and then finally you came to me. We've always been fooling ourselves, Luke. And I won't. Not any more. I won't put either of us through that again."

"I saw the way you were looking at Nathan tonight." Lucas said quietly.

"What?"

"Is that it? You're so used to being treated like an object that anything more than that scares you?"

"Just stop, Lucas. Just stop."

He rashly leaned forward and kissed her and because he was her fatal flaw and weakness, she let him again.

"We belong together. The thought of seeing you with someone else… the thought of you being with someone else… God, it kills me Peyton. Doesn't it kill you?"

"I've watched you be with two other women, watched you claim to be in love with them, watched you declare that they were the only ones for you. And trust me, seeing that in actuality hurt more than the thought of it is hurting you. Don't stand there and tell me how wounded you are. Don't try to stand there like you've been the only one fighting here, the only one pained. I fought for you long and hard and I've been burnt more times than I can count. And I'm just done, okay Luke? Done."

"How can you say that? We've been through too much to give up."

"No. We've been through too much not to."

"You're trading away something real for something easy. Anything more than a one night stand's gonna be hard, Peyton. You know that."

"No, no I don't. I've felt it when it's easy. I know easy and real can exist together."

"You're talking about Nathan. That was just a one time fuck and you think it actually meant something real? You're smarter than that."

Peyton took a deep breath, steeling herself for the fall out from what she knew she had to say. This lie had nearly tore her apart to say and she knew she had to erase it, come what may. "It wasn't a one time fuck."

Bitter laughter came out of Luke's mouth again as he stepped away from her. "So you lied to me." He looked so disgusted. "I get it. You don't want a relationship at all, you like the meaningless sex. That's why you were with him."

"Yeah, I lied to you. Because I knew you'd judge me and I knew I'd hurt you." She couldn't quite bring herself to tell him that she cared about Nathan, that she had wanted more. She knew he wouldn't understand, knew he would fly off the handle.

"That didn't stop you from screwing him."

"Screw you, Lucas. I'm not with you. I haven't been in a long, long time. You don't get to stand there like I betrayed you, you have no right to imply that I'm a whore-"

"Who's implying?" Lucas shot back. He was drunk and pissed off and the two combined always made him one hell of a jack ass.

"Hmm. Guess the 'I'll always want you' bit isn't panning out."

"How can you even live with yourself?"

"Well Luke I'm sorry we're not all fucking frigid, sexless saints like you and St Haley." She retorted.

"Frigid and sexless?" He laughed hollowly, roughly pulling her to him. "So is it a douche bag horndog you want?" He kissed her hard and with malice. "Is that better for you, Peyton? Does that turn you on?"

She pulled herself away from him and archly said, "No, because I guess your brother got all the 'good in the sack' genes. And believe me, I would know."

His eyes flashed. "You know that isn't true. We've made love enough times to prove that."

"Ever consider that I was faking?" And suddenly his lips were on hers again and the anger and alcohol and history twisted together and fuelled something raw. He had her jeans off before the utter ridiculousness of the situation hit Peyton. She was stronger than this. She put a lid on her sexual electricity with Lucas and pushed him off her. "We're not doing this."

He was looking at her legs. "Remember how he wrote that you were his property? Do you get off on treated like an object?"

"You know, I have never seen you this cruel."

"And I never thought you could do something that would make me lose all respect for you."

"Yeah well, Luke at least you're seeing me as human for once. I hate your goddamn pedestal and frankly I'm glad I'm free to do what I want without worrying about your damn opinion of me."

"I was in love with you."

"You were in love with the girl you wanted me to be." She put her pants back on.

He slammed the door of the guest bedroom on his way out and she let herself slide towards the carpet, wrapping her arms around herself and trying to convince herself that she didn't just stomp on what was left of her relationships. She had done what was necessary and now she was completely alone.

The words _who's implying_ circled dully in her head but they didn't sting as much as she thought they would. She had closed the book on her and Lucas forever and it felt freeing more than terrifying. She had tarnished his image of her beyond repair but at least now that she was off his pedestal she had nothing left to hold back, no pretension left to cling to. She was who she was and she was ready to own up to that, even if he condemned her as a whore, even if what she was was far, far from perfect.

_it won't happen again..._  
Happened once, it happened twice it happened three times,

maybe four times, maybe five times,

maybe, maybe it happened six times but it won't happen seven times

_Got nothing to prove, I'm not your whore_

* * *

**AN: **Yep. So I've pretty much always adored angry Nathan, hated drunk Lucas, and wanted Peyton to get her backbone again so here we go. My favourite Peyton was always season 1, bitchy, fuck-your-judgements Peyton and I've always, always wanted her to really rip a new one into Lucas instead of letting everything he does slide like she seemed to on the show, which is where this came from. Thanks for all your input :) Especially Tamarindo, I loveee your epic, surprisingly astute paragraphs. Catch you all on the next update, whenever that will be haha.


	8. Thank You For The Venom

**Thank You For The Venom**

_So give me all your poison  
And give me all your pills  
And give me all your hopeless hearts  
And make me ill_

-

It was five in the morning when Nathan fell out of sleep and re-entered the world of the sober. He felt a rush of annoyance at the responsibility that flowed in his veins because he didn't choose to fall back asleep- he begrudgingly got up and made sure the house wasn't a mess.

He had a headache painful enough to make him automatically dig into his fridge for a vodka-enfused cup of coffee. Nathan was absolutely someone who bought into the whole idea that the best cure for a hang over was a hair of the animal that did the damage.

The instinctual compulsion to go straight for the vodka made him smile ruefully to himself. He had kicked the habit after he had been with Haley for a while because she had always given him this incredulous look of disapproval. It hadn't taken long for him to almost entirely stop binge drinking with her by his side. No one could say she hadn't made him a less destructive person. Thinking about the fact made him take a large swig from his mug. He couldn't believe two months with Peyton had undone six years of behavioural conditioning from Haley.

Nathan winced at his own thought process and felt a wave of distaste at himself for thinking about it as behavioural conditioning. He knew that Haley had probably done more for him than anyone else ever had and that he owed a lot to her. It was a debt he really wished he didn't have to carry.

Not bothering to stifle a yawn, he opened one of the guest room doors and realized Peyton was lying on the floor. Nathan sharply checked her pulse and breathing, reassuring himself that she hadn't passed out and OD'd during the night. He stared at her blankly for a minute as his tired, hung over brain registered that she was there. God, he always did love how she looked when she was asleep. Again, the thought came unbidden and he was instantly annoyed at himself.

Shaking away his surprise at seeing her there, Nathan set his coffee down and crouched to pick her up and deposit her in the bed that was half a foot away. He had to smile at the fact that she ridiculously fell asleep on the hardwood instead of the bed to begin with. She must've been really far gone to just pass out where she was. He brushed away a strand of hair that had fallen into her face and let his thumb brush over her cheek.

Kicking himself for feeling affection for the woman, he quickly recoiled and clenched his jaw tightly. He was acting like an idiot hanging around. Only creepers watched other people sleep, Jesus. He took another deep drink and stiffly spread the blanket over her before exiting the room. Fuck this shit.

xXx

Peyton woke up a few hours later in a mild state of confusion as to where she was. She sat up groggily as last night's party drifted back into memory and tried not to dwell on what kind of ripple effect it would have. Her whole body ached and she remembered that she hadn't actually made it to the bed last night. She knew she hadn't woken up and climbed in at some point during the night, either. She thought about it for a moment longer, then dismissed the curiosity. The house had been filled with a lot of friends, it wasn't exactly breaking news that someone had found her on the floor and taken pity on her.

As she crawled out of bed, she caught sight of the clock and winced. Even if people had stayed over last night, which was unlikely, they would have all wandered home by now. Which meant she was quite possibly stuck in Nathan's place alone with Nathan.

She wondered where Brooke and Haley had gone. She found her purse beside the bed and fished out her phone. Brooke had called her at around two, leaving a voice mail telling her that Haley had work the next day so they really had to go. She had assumed that it wasn't a big deal for the blonde to crash at Nathan's since she hadn't been able to locate her.

Sighing, Peyton sucked in a breath and cautiously opened the door and exited the room.

Her nervousness was wasted. She quickly walked through the house, knowing that she would rather confront him sooner rather than later and found that the house was completely empty. She peeked through the half open door of Nathan's room and saw that he definitely wasn't there, and there was no noise anywhere in the house. She figured he hadn't realized she was there.

Walking back into the kitchen, her stomach dropped as she took a closer look around. A bacon and egg omelette was sitting on the counter beside a bottle of water. She sat down on a stool and stared at the plate, her chest constricting with pain. It felt like an age ago that she had sat in this same place, eating the same food…her last meal with Nathan, really.

A post-it was stuck beside the plate and she felt a wave of hope fill her. The note was terse. _Call Skillz if you need a ride. Eat something or you'll die. _

She never did like to eat much after drinking, even though her stomach always lurched until she stuffed some food into it. In high school, Nathan used to get her breakfast every morning after a party because he knew that about her.

She stuck a fork into the eggs and felt her eyes water again. She could hear his voice saying _they're just eggs_ but she knew now that it was him that had picked her up and tucked her into bed. The proof that he still cared enough to tuck her in and make her food should have made her smile, but she wasn't as naïve as Haley had been during their own version of this falling out. She knew that his doing something nice in no way meant that he was even marginally less angry with her.

Thinking about Haley was like a sucker punch. She hadn't really realized before that she had just done the same thing Haley did- choose some other man over Nathan. Or at least that's how Nathan would have seen in. Haley had chosen Chris Kellar and her music career, Peyton had gone after an old lover and his brother. The comparison filled Peyton with disgust. She had been so, so angry with Haley for what she did and now she herself abandoned him.

The man had been left behind all his life. Deb had chosen her career over her family, Dan used him as a vehicle to live out his own failed dreams, Haley chose music and then decided that Nathan wasn't good enough for her… Peyton had chosen Lucas twice over Nathan, and hell, even Dan had briefly used Luke as a replacement for Nate.

This made Peyton wonder how Nathan had turned out at all functional. It was a miracle he wasn't more emotionally stunted. She had always seen him as defensive, but she never fully understood just how much it would have taken for him to let her in. And God, he had really let her in. She rubbed her face and nausea filled her as a voice inside her whispered that there were only so many times a person could get crushed before they really did just stop opening themselves up at all. Between Haley and herself, Peyton wouldn't blame him if Nathan just gave up on having relationships. She had not hated herself this much in a long time.

She remembered how abrasively cold he had been when Haley had left on tour and that was a funk that only basketball had managed to cure. She never wanted to see him hit that stage again. But he had. When he lost basketball, he had reverted back to a drunken, comatose stupor and it hadn't mattered to him that he had a loving wife and kid at his side. His insides had been frozen in a hellish pain and she knew that if he ever did get that detached again, nothing would be able to take him out of it this time. He had lost the woman he loved more than anything and the sport that had become his whole reason for living. He had limped away from those losses with admirable strength, but seriously, strike three would destroy him.

Peyton shook the thoughts out of her head. She was being ridiculous. Comparing Nathan's love for Haley and his feelings for herself was insufferably egotistical. Nathan had reacted the way he had for Haley because she was his first love. He cared about Peyton, yes, but the level of intensity was nowhere near the same level. She was just arrogant if she thought that she had the power to cripple him.

Besides, he had grown up so much since then that she didn't think he could get crippled like that again. She hoped.

She polished off the plate despite her lack of appetite and took a few grateful swigs out of the water bottle at her side. As was habit with her in this house, Peyton absently washed the dish and put it away, wishing that Nathan was merely in the other room.

Peyton couldn't help but look around the house that she had practically moved into. Nothing was different, really. She suddenly remembered that she had kept a drawer of clothes and a corner of toiletries here and wondered if he had thrown them out.

It felt stranger than strange to walk into Nathan's bedroom. It felt like snooping, even though this had once been the room she shared with him. The room looked exactly the same- right down to the notepad of scribbled music comments Peyton had left on the bedside table. She stood in front of the chest of drawers and slowly opened the fifth one down, the one that she had used. Her things were untouched. She didn't know if she should be surprised or not. She would not have put it past a hurt Nathan to have just dumped out her belongings into the trash, but at the same time the level of petty rashness that act implied seemed beneath him.

Oddly enough, the fact that he hadn't so much as moved anything of hers seemed to hurt her more than if her things had been destroyed. This seemed to imply that he was indifferent to the fact that her things were still here, which could mean that he was indifferent to any reminder of her.

She sat down on his side of the bed and absently plumped his pillow. It smelled so distinctly of him. She quickly put the pillow back down and chided herself for being so creepy. She knew she had no right to be in here any more.

Peyton went back to staring at the post-it he had left for her and wanted to write him something in response, but nothing came to mind that would not sound ridiculous or contrived. And because this was her nature, her fingers found paper and pencil and she drew him what she wished she could say to his face. It felt stupendously moronic of her to expose herself like this; she was being pathetically sentimental and she knew he'd likely just snort at it and throw it out… but she had to respond somehow and this was the only way she had ever known how.

When she finished, she looked at the post-it and followed the first part of his instructions by dialling Skillz on her phone. She didn't want to admit to herself that she never wanted to leave. A part of her wanted to wait in the house until Nathan came back… but it was clear he had left to avoid her.

She was sitting on the driveway when Skillz pulled up.

"Hey. Nathan said to call you for a ride, I'm sorry that I had to drag you down here-"

"Don't worry about it." The look he was giving her unnerved her. It was so soft.

She felt vaguely uncomfortable as she put her seatbelt on; she could still feel Skillz watching her.

"He told you about us, didn't he?" She said bluntly, looking straight ahead.

"Yeah. You okay?"

"I was the one that walked away from him." Peyton reminded him. "Why shouldn't I be okay?" Her voice was bitter.

"Because everyone knows chicken legs always goes for the wrong guy." Skillz smiled, nudging her shoulder. "But everyone also knows that she always gets it right in the end."

"What did he say about me, Skillz?" Peyton ventured, trying and failing to keep the hope out of the question.

"That he's too old to be playing these kinds of games again."

"Does he still… would he ever…"

"Girl, this ain't middle school. We're not playing some game of telephone here." He looked at her pointedly. "If you wanna know something, you ask him. He's right. You're too old to be playing these games."

"I know. It's just…hard. I miss him like hell but I know that his life is so complicated as it is. Maybe I should just leave him alone."

"So what you're saying is, you wanna give up."

"That's-there's- it's not like-" Peyton fumbled for words, feeling a spurt of anger at Skillz for being so straightforward. "It's not like there's anything left to hold on to."

"And if you really believe that, by all means do what you want." He shrugged.

"Why do you seem to know everything?" Peyton asked wryly.

"I'm awesome, that's why." He grinned.

"What am I supposed to do, Skillz? He's not exactly receptive to anything I have to say and I don't blame him. Distance might be best. It's better than forcing myself on him."

"Look, whatever you do, just make sure it's not something you'll regret ten years from now. Don't give me this bull shit about it being hard, or that it's what he wants. Your whole problem is that you never know what _you_ want. So once you do know, you better damn well not run away from it just 'cause you're scared."

She absorbed his words, surprised by how harrowingly accurate they were. "You know, considering your biggest relationships were with Bevin and Nathan's mom, it really makes no sense that'd you'd be the guy who gives the best advice on this stuff," she joked.

"Hey, it's like they say- those who can't do, teach." He winked and pulled against the curb in front of Peyton's house.

"You wanna come in? We've got a fridge stocked with food." Peyton offered.

"Nah, I'm good. You just get on in there."

"Thanks for the ride… and the kick in the pants." She smiled.

"Any time, girl. And just between you and me, I'm really gunning for you and Nate. It started off with you, and it makes sense for it to end with you."

"You're probably the only one who will think that." She laughed.

"Hey, if you do decide to back off, no one else will ever have to know so it won't matter anyways." He said cheerfully. She tried to smile back as she left the car, but she felt distinctly unsettled at the possibility of life going on as though they had never happened. Skillz grinned to himself and shook his head as he watched the emotions on her face. Mission accomplished.

xXx

Nathan worked himself at the gym for several hours just to have an excuse to stay away from home. He had left the house right after he foolishly decided to make Peyton food. He was still kicking himself for that token of sentimentality. Why did he always do this? In the middle of being righteously angry with someone, he'd do something nice for them and they'd think all was forgiven just because he had a moment of weakness.

But he hadn't been able to help himself. It was what he had always done for her. It was with him that Peyton got drunk for the first time. It was back before they were dating, the summer bonfire before freshman year. Everyone in their grade was there, nervous as hell since it was the first time most of them had partied with high schoolers (Brooke not included- that girl had been sneaking into high school parties since the beginning of middle school and had already moved on to college keggers). The next day they would be in high school themselves and the air of anxious excitement was thick in the air.

That party was a ritual that had been around for as long as Nathan could remember and from what he'd seen, it was still going on. It was hardly a welcome-the-noobs thing. The kids going into senior year took the party as a chance to begin establishing their reign of terror over those who would be the rejects of the freshmen grade. Those who had just wrapped their own freshmen year relished the chance to frosh as they had recently been froshed, and those who had been popular in middle school began the groundwork of joining the popular elite in high school. It was an absolutely necessary social passage for freshmen to attend- it was that party that the initial sorting into popular and unpopular happened.

Of course, in later years for the older students it just became a venue to get drunk and laugh at the younger people, but to the freshmen, it was a scary ceremony of judgement.

Peyton was best friends with Brooke, and Brooke had future Queen Bee written all over her so obviously she made the cut as well. Once accepted, a snotty junior ushered her along with the rest of the freshmen towards the keg. Nathan was already on his second cup of beer; he thought this whole night was a joke- he knew that he was destined to be a varsity star and that arrogant charisma of his had him sailing through to the keg after just a curt nod to the popular crowd doing the judging. He had already spent several accumulative weeks in basketball training camps with some of the basketball players of Tree Hill High and like Brooke, his acceptance was not a question.

Peyton had followed Brooke around at first while she let her social butterfly tendencies run free- within the first twenty minutes, Brooke had befriended everyone around the area that she hadn't already known. A cute senior handed Peyton a cup from the keg and raised his eyebrows expectantly when she just blinked blankly at him. Brooke had thrown a casual arm around her and whispered to her that if she didn't drink now, she'd be known as a priss for the rest of the year. Peyton rolled her eyes internally at the idiocy of this little game, but since the senior was still watching her, she threw back the cup with an ease she did not feel.

Brooke grinned approvingly and then drifted away to flirt with a group of older guys nearby as Peyton was handed another cup.

She felt mildly awkward standing around by herself so she chugged that cup, too, to loosen herself up. This wasn't the first time she had drank liquor, Brooke had seen to that, but Peyton had never drank enough to get more than a slight buzz. That was changing tonight. She made a bit of small talk with girls she knew from middle school but grew sick of the idle prattle. A few guys tried to hit on her but most of them were drunk already and she was put off by their sleaziness.

She was nursing her fourth beer while hovering around the keg when Nathan finished bantering with his future teammates and flirting with the chicks for long enough to approach her.

He was amused at the way she drank like she meant it- most of the other girls there flinched every time their lips touched their cups but Peyton took large swigs at a time and had an enviable poker face.

"Peyton, right?" They had gone to middle school together, which wasn't saying much since in a town as small as Tree Hill, most people went to middle school together, but they had never shared a class.

She would have known who he was had she paid any attention to the social dynamics of her school, but she had been in elementary school when her mom had died and with her death passed any vestige Peyton had of having a normal life. Brooke did everything in her power to bring Peyton with her up the popularity ladder in high school, but Peyton really just didn't give a damn.

"You went to THMS, didn't you?" She offered.

He laughed, amused at the fact that she didn't know who he was. "Yeah. We went to the same school for three years and you never learned my name?"

She didn't look embarrassed; she merely smiled and shrugged.

"You're really putting those away." He had said, nodding at the cup she was getting re-filled again.

"Wanna go shot-for-shot?" She had challenged him, raising an eyebrow.

Nathan had grinned, chugged the last of his cup, and beckoned for a re-fill. "Bring it."

Three empty cups later, Nathan eyed her and grinned that maybe she should give up. She stubbornly refused so he shrugged and handed her another beer.

Cut to Peyton drunkenly laughing as she sat sprawled in the sand on the beach, with Nathan beside her tugging her cup away from her. She stopped laughing for long enough to look him in the eye and smile, "You're kind of cute, whatever your name is."

"And you're more than kind of drunk, Peyton whatever your last name is." He had chuckled.

"So are you." She pointed out, proving her point by knocking him over by prodding him with her index finger.

He wandered away soon afterwards, lost in a flock of hot drunk girls, and she argued with the DJ about music selection until Brooke found her and brought her home.

The next day was the first day of classes and most of the student body had hang overs to nurse, especially the inexperienced freshmen. Peyton had nothing but an unsettled stomach but refused Brooke's advice to eat something. Lunch had rolled around and the populars all gathered in one central area around the picnic tables outside since it was warm out. She had walked by Nathan on his way back from getting food.

"Is your head killing you as much as mine is?" He had said in greeting.

"Nope. Guess I just hold my liquor better." She had jibed.

That was of course when Brooke skipped up to her and asked if her stomach was feeling better and chided her for her lack of food.

"I'm not hungry." Peyton had insisted, disgruntled at the smug look on Nathan's face.

"You haven't eaten anything since before yesterday's party. You need something to soak up the liquor, boozie." Brooke had crossed her arms.

Nathan looked all too satisfied with himself when he tossed her a paper bag from his backpack. "Here, eat this. My mom decided to go all Suzy homemaker by making me a lunch, but fuck that, I buy my shit."

She glared at his open amusement but grudgingly took the bag. He smirked and re-joined his jock friends, she rolled her eyes and accepted Brooke's proffered arm as the two of them sat down by the top of the top, of which Brooke had already been included.

The next party that Brooke managed to convince Peyton to go to was at Halloween, and since Nathan went to all parties, they ran into each other again. He did shots with her again, and the morning after, in the hallway at school, he had tossed her a muffin from the nearby coffee shop that he had gone to for breakfast.

That became the only time the two of them really spoke since he was busy ingraining himself as the go-to guy for basketball and she was getting dragged around by Brooke in her attempt to give Peyton a cushy high school life by cementing her popularity.

When the year-end dance hit, she had accepted his dance request partially because she was curious what it'd be like to interact with him when neither of them were either drunk or hung over. She was surprised at how much she liked it, and he was surprised at himself for how long it had taken him to realize that he was into her.

Nathan had been Peyton's food fairy pretty much every time she had gotten drunk since they were fifteen. It was a small habit that preceded their relationship and even their friendship- and it was not something he felt he could discontinue even in their current circumstances. So he had made her food. It didn't mean anything; it was just what they did.

He wanted to burn out the image of her drunken, sand-covered self telling him that he was kind of cute. That had been a Peyton that had let herself unwind a bit, a Peyton that was unabashedly giddy. It had been beer-induced, but Nathan had seen that giddiness in Peyton sober- when she was with his brother. She had betrayed him, there was no doubt about that, but Peyton and Lucas were magnets drawn to each other regardless of anything or anyone in their path. He had been fooling himself if he thought that she could ever truly forget about Lucas and be content with Nathan. Wanting Lucas was ingrained in her, it was part of who she was. It always had been. It was something Nathan had known for years… the fact that he had let himself believe otherwise was something he was unbearably angry at himself for. The fact that she had led him to believe she cared about him more than she yearned for Lucas… that was something he didn't think he could ever forgive. But it was obliviousness, not cruelty, that had caused this whole thing. Lucas and Peyton never did learn to read their hearts properly and it was everyone who fell in love with them that had to pay the price.

Nathan didn't return home until well into the evening. He was making damn sure that he wouldn't run into Peyton. Despite it being well past the point in which Peyton would have woken up and left, he was still paranoid when he walked through the front doors. He knew that if this was Haley, she'd be waiting for him in the living room.

The house was dark and empty. He breathed a sigh of relief, surprised that he even half thought Peyton would wait. His post-it was still stuck against the counter and he approached it thinking she had left him a response. She had just written _k, thanks_ at the bottom of the note. Again, he chided himself for expecting anything different. Peyton was not a sap and she was a girl who had known his intricacies for years- he was foolish for worrying she would see his token of kindness as an invitation to reconcile.

He crumpled up the post-it and promptly threw it out. He had spent a good twenty minutes staring at the paper, trying to come up with something that conveyed his message in as few words and as little emotion as possible. He had hoped that telling her to get Skillz to drive her would be a flashing indication that nothing had changed between them- that there was no chance in hell _he_ would drive her. Still, seeing that she had written something so perfunctory pricked him. He knew he was being ridiculous, knew he'd respect her less if she had written him a heartfelt love letter or something, but it was times like these that he wished they weren't so similar.

Walking into his bedroom, he felt what he always felt when he went in there- a shortness of breath that was invoked by all the vestiges of Peyton that still remained there. Every time he walked in there he would notice every piece of her that she had left behind and he'd have to restrain himself from running his fingers over all her stuff. He knew that he should have chucked all of it into a bag and left it at her house, but he couldn't quite make himself go through her clothes. Everything was as it stood the morning before she had walked away from him. It felt like she could just walk in there at any moment and the two of them would just be like they used to be. It hurt him every second he stood in the room and it was precisely because of that pain that he kept everything the way it was. It served as a reminder of how much he had let himself give a damn and a warning to not be such an idiot again.

He slumped down on his bed and felt the harrowing emptiness of the space beside him. As he did every fucking night, he first tried to face away from her side of the bed before granting himself a moment to turn around and touch her pillow- the only moment he allowed himself to stop hating her and to just miss the shit out of her. This time, as his hand fumbled with the pillow, his fingers brushed against something stiff underneath it.

Frowning, he moved the pillow and saw a piece of paper lying neatly under it. Recognizing it instantly as a sketch, Nathan swallowed tightly and picked it up, trying not to think about the fact that this meant that she had been in here recently, that she had probably sat in this bed just this morning; her presence a haunting vestige of something they could never have again.

It was a drawing of herself, sitting on his side of the bed, her arms hugging his pillow to her as she looked straight at him, her eyes somehow emotionally charged and watering. Damn, he hated how good at this she was. The drawing had a speech bubble, _I miss you, Nathan. _At the bottom, in typical fashion, there was a caption. _But you deserve better than that. 'I'm sorry' can never be enough. P.S. Then. Now. Endlessly._

The fact that she had placed this under her pillow meant that she had only wanted him to see this if he had felt enough for her to feel her side of the bed and the anger bubbled up again to cover up the overwhelming sadness. Had she known that he missed her like hell? Had she known that he ritualistically stared at the space where she used to sleep? Or had she put her drawing there with the expectation that he wouldn't notice it? The fact that she had hidden the drawing and not just left it out in the open meant that she was still scared to make him see how much she cared about him- or it was evidence to herself that he still cared about her. He felt tricked into this sentimentality, like his nostalgia had set off a trap. Nathan clenched his fists and stuffed the sketch inside the drawer on her side of the bed.

He couldn't sleep now. Nathan wanted to drive across to her house and demand to know what kind of game she thought she was playing, but he knew that attempting to be discreet about this in front of Brooke was not a task he had enough self-control to handle right now.

Ripping his phone off its charger, he vengefully dialled her number, scoffing at the fact that she was still entered in as number seven on his speed dial. Lucky she was definitely not.

Peyton had been sitting on her back porch, knees to chest and staring at the sky when her cell phone trilled from the table across from her. She jerked forward when she heard the opening notes of Fort Minor's Remember The Name, the ring tone she had set for Nathan back in high school.

"Nathan?" She was too surprised at the fact that he was calling her to say hello.

"Yeah. What the fuck was with that drawing you left?" His tone was red hot and she was taken aback at how defensive he sounded.

"…what do you mean?" Peyton leaned forward on the bench she was on, confused as hell. "I-I just wanted to leave you something to show that I… that I still and always will give a damn."

"Bull shit. What kind of little mind game are you trying to play? Now, then, endlessly? What the fuck? Is that supposed to be your version of always and forever? Seriously, what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Peyton shut her eyes tightly; his words eating through her like acid. She hadn't even considered that he'd link her words to his catchphrase with Haley and was repulsed that he had merged the two.

"I'm sorry." She whispered. "I wanted to apologize and I didn't know how else to do it."

"I don't want or need your Goddamn apologies, Peyton. This is so fucking childish. If you've got something to say, then fucking say it, don't leave me little notes like this."

"You mean like the note you left me this morning instead of just speaking to me like a human being?" Peyton retorted angrily.

"I made you breakfast, it wasn't a declaration of love-"

"And I didn't think it was, you jack ass! I didn't fucking write you a love letter and jump for joy when I saw there were Goddamn eggs on the counter; I left you a drawing under my pillow so that if you ever did think of me you'd see that I was thinking of you too, it's not like I left it on the counter or something. If you found the drawing, obviously it means that you were thinking about me so don't jump down my throat like I attacked you with affection."

"I was fucking changing my sheets!" He snapped indignantly, feeling as though her words confirmed the fact that the drawing was a trap to prove that he did miss her.

"You know what, Nathan? Screw you. I was trying to do something nice, trying to show you that I know I messed up, that I'm sorry as hell and that I care about you and I know it's not enough, that it'll never be enough... You didn't need to call me up and batter me down when you know it's completely unnecessary to repeat how fucking over me you are." Peyton ran a hand through her hair, frustrated and hurt. "I get it, okay? And you have a right to be mad at me but you're acting like an absolute douche bag, worse than you've ever been, and don't fucking tell me that I deserve it- I'm a person and I don't deserve to feel like every single thing I do is a moronic piece of shit mistake. If you thought the drawing was stupid, fine, you could have just ripped it up, but no, you had to call me up and yell at me for trying to express myself. And you wonder why I leave stuff like that instead of just talking to you. Every time I talk to you, I just drown a little deeper inside of myself because it hurts so much."

"I think I have every right to be a jack ass about this since you fucking eviscerated me, Peyton. You rip the heart out of any guy who loves you and maybe Jake and Lucas were too nice to be pissed, but if you're gonna claw out my heart you better realize that it's not going to be fixed by a little corny sweet talk."

"You know I never meant to hurt you and you know how deeply I regret what happened. What I did was a stupid, callous mistake. What you're doing is intentional and cruel. In one moment of time, I hurt you a lot. And you've been emotionally pounding the living crap out of me every moment since. We broke up in high school because of this unhealthy obsession to 'win' any fight we have, usually by ripping each other to shreds and I thought we both grew out of it but you're still malicious, Nathan. And if you ever actually gave a fuck about me, you wouldn't take such pleasure from hurting me."

"You think I enjoy this?" Nathan asked incredulously. "I'm doing this because it has to be done, not because it's what I want to do. I'm making you understand the damn consequences to your fucking indecision."

"Does it satisfy you to know that sometimes I can't breathe because thinking about how much you hate me makes me want to not exist? That I'm beginning to really hate myself because I can't even un-know you because I'd rather endure your constant anger than deal with a life you're not part of? I'm sick of needing you and I'm sick of you using that against me. You're a dick, plain and simple."

"Everyone that has ever said they'd be there for me, left. Do you even get how hard it was for me to let my guard down with you?"

"Does your self-centered head even realize that I've crawled on my hands and knees through a warzone of abandonment issues, death, betrayals, and vindictive retribution from every person I've ever accidentally fucked with to land at your feet, still willing to open myself up to your target practice even though you know I know you well enough to understand how much it'll hurt? I can't believe you're seriously whipping out the people always leave accusation- I CREATED THAT, you shit head! I've dealt with more abandonment issues than you have and I don't think YOU get how much it takes for _me_ to come back to you after everything that's happened to me." Peyton yelled, blinded by rage at his audacity.

"Then stop coming back." He said, his voice metallic.

"If I had figured out how to do that, maybe my heart wouldn't be a mess of scabs and open wounds." Peyton sighed, leaning back into her bench to stare once more at the expanse of sky above her. "But for some masochistic, fucked up reason, I really fucking care about you, Nathan. And I can't walk away no matter how much you want me to because you know what? I know you. And I know that the more hurt you are, the more you lash out and the only reason you ever let yourself get that hurt is because you really fucking care, too. And I know you think it'd be easier to just hurt me right back, to hide in your anger rather than deal with how sad you are; I know you half hope I'll walk away so you never have to deal with how much damage I did, but here's the kicker Nathan: I know you too damn well and I'm not fooled. "

"You don't know shit, Peyton. If you really knew me, you'd know that I don't forgive easily and after the whole chaotic mess with Haley, I don't forgive at all in these situations. You'd know that this anger isn't covering anything up but more anger. You'd know that walking away would be the only thing that'll stop this because when you mess with me, I don't stop retaliating until the other side's charred to the ground."

"I'm already charred to the ground, Nathan. You've seen to that."

"I'm hanging up now."

"You do that. Then maybe tomorrow you can go back to your perfect little life where you hold your tongue and control your actions so you can be that perfect Stepford husband."

"Better that than the destructive mess I am when I'm around you."

"It's only destructive because you just can't put down your weapons. You always did let your temper rule you."

"I have a backbone and unlike you, I'm not about to give that up."

"I never asked you to."

"Just walk away, Peyton. Walk away."

"Just let it go, Nathan. Please. This anger is going to destroy everything around you, including yourself. You're going to go cold inside."

"I turned cold the second you told Lucas we were nothing but a cheap fuck."

"You can't blame me forever."

"Try me." Nathan bit out, finally hanging up the phone.

He buried his head in his hands, anguished and tortured.

Goddamn it, talking to Peyton always brought out the absolute worst in him lately and he hated it because he knew she was right. It was a defense mechanism and he was ripping out her soul piece by piece…and he didn't even want to do it. He just didn't know how to stop any more. He knew he couldn't let her get close again, but this type of battle worked so much better when his opponent wasn't a woman who had fought this same war with him countless times in the past.

He wished she was the type to just give up at the first sign of his fire, but he knew she was stubborn as hell and would yell right back at him… and he worried that one day, he'd cross a line and the only person who could tolerate him when he was like this would break and fall back like all the rest of them. No one else could handle him when he was a sulky, insufferable jack ass and she had always known exactly what to do and say to get through to him. But this time, his stubbornness was fiercely against her and he didn't like how cruelly defensive he got when she pitted her strength against his anger. The more she tried to get through to him, the more scared he became at how close she was hitting. And Nathan never had reacted healthily to having people come too close to his barriers.

Truth be told, he knew that he couldn't walk away either. He knew that he didn't want to stop being angry at her because if he did, that would mean he had accepted everything that had happened. It would mean that he had moved on and there would be nothing left for the two of them to say to each other. He threw insults and accusations at her because right now, that was the only way he could maintain contact with her.

She wore her heart on her sleeve for him and honestly, he did understand how hard that was for her to do. But he just didn't know if he could ever trust her enough to do the same, not again.

His phone beeped in his lap. He had ring tones set so they'd ring even for texts and so stared incredulously at the device when Peyton's ring tone went off. It was _The Bitch Song _by Bowling For Soup, something he'd cheekily set years ago when the two were still dating. He couldn't believe he hadn't changed it yet and really couldn't believe Peyton would have anything left to say to him after their blow out.

_Endlessly. I meant it._

Nathan shut his eyes and wished that Peyton would just let go. And he knew that she would, eventually. They always did.

Clenching his jaw, he threw his phone as hard as he could against the opposite wall. A frustrated shout clawed out of his throat and he collapsed on his mattress as his phone shattered on impact.

xXx

_If this is what you want  
Then fire at will_

You'll never make me leave  
_I wear this on my sleeve_

* * *

**AN: **I may have gone to town a wee bit in this chapter x). This chapter was mainly about P/N attempting to work through their shit in the most dysfunctional way possible, but the fall out from Peyton's argument with Lucas from the last chapter will seriously hit the fan in the next update. I was going to originally make this the fall out chapter but Nathan's issues and a random urge to fill in more P/N backstory distracted me haha. Thanks again for your feedback, I will likely churn out something new soon.


	9. All You Did Was Save My Life

**All You Did Was Save My Life**

-

_I'm not for sale but I've been sold  
The more I hear the less I know  
The lies are swallowed whole in there insignificance  
_

**The story's been told a million times, but it's different when it's your life**

xXx

Peyton slammed her phone shut and screamed loudly at the rectangle in her hand. "_Go fuck yourself."_

Tearing the door open, she walked through the house until she located Brooke, who was sitting cross legged on her bed.

Throwing herself beside her best friend, Peyton angrily exclaimed that men were absolute dumb fucks.

"Somebody's worked up." Brooke quirked her eyebrow up. "Who did the damage this time?"

"They all suck. All of them. My God." Peyton felt like breaking things. She turned to face Brooke, who was just staring at her. Sighing, she fed her friend a bit of information. "I drunkenly told off Lucas yesterday. I'm pretty sure we're never going to be friends again, much less anything more."

"Do you regret that?"

"Not really." Peyton answered without hesitation.

"Okay, so who are you really pissed at right now?" Brooke smiled patiently.

She couldn't tell her, even now. Peyton didn't now if it was lingering guilt over the whole he-was-Haley's-husband thing or if she just liked that her and Nathan's relationship was a secret, but she couldn't muster up the energy to tell Brooke that it was Nathan that she had been sneaking around with, Nathan she had broken and who was breaking her.

"He's a jack ass." Peyton said sullenly.

"So drop him."

"I love him." She admitted, her stomach churning at the thought.

"And here I was thinking you'd gotten over your thing for ass hats after you and Nathan broke up." Brooke said, missing the slight wince Peyton tried to hide.

"He's only being an ass now because I really messed up." She sighed, trying to work out how much she could tell Brooke without her friend guessing who she was talking about. "I need your advice. I'm going crazy here."

"Okay, define how you messed up. Did you cheat on him?"

"Kind of, but worse… I guess you can call it an emotional affair." Peyton chewed on her lip. "…With Luke."

Brooke looked at her, wide-eyed with understanding. "Is that what the hoopla's all about? You were with another guy, happy, and then Lucas takes his head out of his ass and confuses the crap out of you, and this other guy gets pissed off, and then you decide you don't want Lucas but the damage's already done?"

"Pretty much," Peyton blinked in surprise at her friend for ascertaining the situation so quickly.

"Well, then, this new guy's an idiot. You were head over heels for Lucas and the fact that you've decided you want New Guy over Luke is ground breaking. Everyone has exes and he should understand that you had a moment of weakness when someone you thought you'd grow old with suddenly walked back into the picture," Brooke said.

"I told him about Luke before hand; he knew all about that baggage. And I assured him I was over Luke. I'm pretty sure he would never have gotten so invested if I hadn't absolutely promised him that I didn't want to be with Lucas any more."

"But you don't. That's the thing, isn't it? You don't want to be with Luke any more."

"But I chose Lucas over the new guy initially and it really hurt him. He's had to deal with a lot of relationship crap in his past and he has serious trust issues. I want to be with him, but he's pissed as hell and it hurts like nothing else."

"If this was high school, I'd tell you to date someone else and smoke him out of his pissiness, but since I don't think high school dating tactics would help much anymore… I guess you've just got to try to make him see how important he is to you."

"He pretty much rips out my heart every time I try."

"Then tell him he's a dick and that you're ready to be with him when he grows the fuck up and decides that being with you is more important than punishing you for your mistake."

"I've tried to do that…I'm just scared he won't come back."

"Honey, like I've said from the start, you deserve someone who realizes how lucky they are to have you and yet you always choose the ass holes who take you for granted every time." Brooke crossed her arms. "If he doesn't come back, screw him."

"He didn't take me for granted, Brooke. I really messed up. Hell, I don't know if I would come back if I were him." Peyton exhaled. "It feels like I have a few sucky, limited options- be a doormat and beg him to come back, which I'm not doing, or just give up and try to move on, which I really don't want to do."

"You've put your cards on the table. He knows how you feel. I think continuing to press the point is just going to end up with you torturing yourself. I really think you should just back down and move on. There's a time for fighting for someone and a time for just walking away so they realize how much they want you."

"Standing down seems like such a passive move…"

"Standing beside him when he's lashing out like a toddler is worse than passivity. It's masochistic."

Peyton laughed. "Funny. I was just telling him that I was masochistic for sticking around."

"Well, you've always liked to put yourself through the most painful crap possible just because you're stubborn and drawn to the people who will hurt you the most." Brooke shook her head. "You make me sick with worry, I hope you know."

"It wasn't like that with him. We were so good for each other."

"Then either he'll decide the good is worth forgiving you for, or you'll find someone better."

"Why is the ball completely in his court?" Peyton grumbled.

"Because the one who's most open about how much they care has the least power." Brooke answered wisely.

Peyton sat leaned back against Brooke's pillows and sighed. It was that mindset that had landed her and Nathan into his stupid cycle. She wished they could both stop caring about who had the power and realize they were on the same side. Of course, it was her stupid fault that he felt like he had to hold up arms against her.

Which was something Brooke reminded her of, "…And, you know, he wasn't the one that messed up, honey."

xXx

"Nathan! _You slept with her more than once?"_ Lucas's furious voice sailed into Nathan as he was browsing through the grocery store.

Nathan grimaced. He knew this day would come, he had just really hoped that it was a moment he would have seen coming beforehand.

He turned around and hoped it was possible for both of them to keep rational, but judging by the lasers shooting out of Lucas's eyes, he doubted the likelihood of that.

"…So, I'm going to take a wild stab and say Peyton told you."

"You ass hole." Lucas's clenched fist swung out and connected with a solid thud against Nathan's eye.

He buckled backwards into a shelf display of kraft dinner, kicking himself for not being prepared for that.

"Huh. I'm normally the one that gets angry and starts punching people." Nathan said lightly, straining to calm the situation down. He stood up and clutched at his eye, wondering when his brother developed such a good right cross. "You're upset. That's understandable."

"Upset." Lucas spat out hollowly. "You've been screwing Peyton for God knows how long behind all of our backs and you have the balls to just stand there and act like you didn't just stab the crap out of my back." He took a step closer to Nathan, who promptly brought his arms up defensively just in case. "You know how I found out? At your Goddamn make-Nathan-feel-better party, drunk as hell, I get to hear all about how she's giving up on us because she'd rather be fucked by you than loved by me."

Nathan was blindsided by that tidbit and Lucas took the opportunity to grab him by the front of his shirt and shove him hard against the shelf. Nathan's eyes darkened as he roughly pushed his brother off of him. "Look. You got one free punch because you're hurting, but get your hands off me man."

"I should rip out your heart so you know how it feels, you bastard." Lucas's arms were up again but this time Nathan blocked his blow.

"Don't worry about that. I know how it feels." He said, trying not to get angry at his dumb ass brother's misguided assumptions.

By this time, a crowd was starting to gather. The manager and a small fleet of clerks came rushing forward. "We're going to have to ask you to leave," The manager said, his voice both stern and nervous.

Lucas stalked out without another word.

Nathan rubbed his sore face again and apologized for the mess before following the blond.

"You gonna keep yelling at me, or are you gonna stomp off?" Nathan said to Lucas's back.

Lucas spun around and jabbed his finger angrily in Nathan's face, "You have a family. Did you think about anyone before you did that? Me? Haley? Jamie?"

"Oh, suck it Lucas." Nathan rolled his eyes. "Like I told you back when you walked in on us in Peyton's office, neither of us were in relationships and there was nothing despicable about what we did."

"So what, you're just going to get back with Haley like nothing happened?"

"That's exactly what you and Peyton were trying to do, wasn't it?" Nathan bit out. "You saw her on top of me and you still wanted her, didn't you?"

"_She _doesn't me want me. Do you have to take everything from me?" Luke's voice was thick with accusation. "You became the basketball star, you married my best friend; did you have to steal Peyton too?"

"You're kidding me with this, right?" Nathan laughed, "I had basketball before you ripped the glory out of my hands and Peyton was _my _girlfriend before she decided she wanted you instead. Dan adopted you into his life when I emancipated myself and even when we were happily married Haley was always closer to you than to me. You're the one that's been ripping things out of my life and taking it for yourself, piece by piece."

"Maybe you just fail at everything. I made the Ravens a much stronger team; I got Peyton to stop running from her feelings, and Dan was probably a better father to me in the year that you walked away from me than he had ever been to you. As for Haley, if I wasn't around you'd probably have destroyed her spirit by now."

"I thought we out grew of this petty competition." Nathan shook his head. "But every minute of every day you're still struggling against being the unpopular, lame Scott, aren't you? It's ingrained in you."

Lucas snorted loudly. "You tell yourself that. I've always been the better man, there's no question of that."

"I'm walking away now Lucas, before my self restraint dies and I hit you. And trust me, if I hit you, you won't be getting back up that easily." Nathan said lowly as he tried to sidestep his brother.

"We had everything. And you just had to wreck it." Luke shook his head.

"Wake the hell up, man. Our lives were never as idyllic as you're implying. Maybe everything's a mess right now, but it's a real mess. Not a pretty little picture filled with lies and self doubt." Nathan answered without turning around. He was so sick of trying to justify himself to his brother, sick of being seen as the screwed up Scott. Lucas was more of a disaster than he was, but no one ever saw that.

xXx

That afternoon, Peyton tagged along with Brooke on her random errands and the two ended up at the Scott house, hanging out with Haley and Jamie. Peyton was uneasy even stepping foot in the house but she finally learned that avoiding people and that which was unpleasant was not a solution she could fall back on anymore.

Watching how Haley was with her son made Peyton wonder what the hell she and Nathan were thinking when they thought they could entwine themselves and have everyone be all right with it. The Scotts had the perfect familial unit and her sex drive had ruined it. How did she ignore reason for so long?

Nathan had a wife who brought out the best in him and a son who loved him more than words and he had decided that he wanted Peyton. Did she really think that he hadn't considered the ramifications of that decision? He had weighted the potential fall out and had decided she was worth it. She had taken one look at his brother's pleading eyes and walked away from his open heart without even considering how big of a deal it was that Nathan was with her.

"Hey Nate." Brooke grinned, breaking Peyton out of her sullen thoughts. He had just walked in the back door and Jamie was already flying into his arms.

Nathan laughed and picked his son up before casually glancing around the room. He barely reacted to Peyton's presence. "Hey. I'm not interrupting another girls' hang out, am I?"

Haley shook her head and smiled, "Jamie's favourite aunts just decided to drop by, that's all." A frown quickly developed as she looked at him. "What happened to your face?"

"I was playing ball with some of the guys and got whacked in the face trying to block a pass." Nathan chuckled. "Still stings." Haley told him that he should be more careful with the guys and offered him ice, which he declined, but Peyton felt the slight sheen of falsity in his laugh and her stomach dropped in wondering what really happened.

"Come on, let's get your stuff." Nathan said to the boy.

"Swing me, momma!" Jamie wheedled, waving his left arm at his mother as his right clutched tightly onto Nathan's.

She grinned, clasped his hand, and met Nathan's eyes as the two swung Jamie between them as they made their way towards Jamie's room in synchronization.

Peyton couldn't look away from the picture perfect scene. Seeing the Scott family together made her see that walking away from Nathan could have been the best thing she could have done for him. She was a fool to have believed even for a second that he could be happier with her than with Haley. Her decision to choose Lucas had ignited the reconciliation of Haley and Nathan and pushed him back towards the life that he rightfully earned. He didn't deserve to be a divorcee at twenty three and Peyton had always known that their pledge of always and forever was not rash or illegitimate. Haley had saved Nathan...and Nathan had saved Peyton. She had to let him go back to what had always been destined for him. They were the real deal. Peyton had just been another test along the way.

"Jamie's so adorable." Brooke smiled beside her.

"All of them are." Peyton said, drinking in the echoes of laughter that rang down the hallway.

When they reappeared with Jamie's backpack, Nathan and Peyton's eyes met again but once again his eyes didn't so much as darken. He looked away without hesitation, leaving her to try to cover up the emotion she was sure was present in her own eyes. The effort wasn't necessary, everyone was looking at Jamie.

"So we better get going. We're meeting Skillz and Mouth on the boardwalk."

"Getting some sun?" Brooke asked.

"Getting some ice cream." Jamie beamed.

"And video games." Nathan added seriously.

"Wanna come?" Jamie ran up to Brooke and took her hand. "Come on Aunt Brooke. And momma, you should come too. And Aunt Peyton."

Haley smiled that she guessed she could use some ice cream and the gang started grabbing their jackets. Peyton kept her face neutral but didn't fail to notice that she was an afterthought in the kid's invitation- and why shouldn't she be? She was never all that great with kids, angry loners not included, and she knew she'd never be a wacky fun aunt like Brooke was. The kid barely knew her and it was probably better that way.

She had never felt quite so awkward and excluded. "You know, I think I'm just going to head back to Tric-" Peyton smiled.

"No way!" Jamie protested, relinquishing his hold on Brooke and launching himself beside Peyton. "I wanna play video games with both my aunts." He slipped his hand in hers, "I'll even supply the quarters."

She had to smile genuinely at his enthusiasm. "You can keep your quarters, baby James- if you let me buy you a cone."

"Sounds like a good deal to me," He grinned, pulling her out the door.

Down at the ice cream parlour, Haley tried to say that Peyton didn't need to buy Jamie's cone but she had wryly responded that one ice cream wasn't exactly going to make up for four missed birthdays. Brooke had laughed that Peyton was always meant to be the person that just gave cash anyways, but Jamie had climbed into Peyton's lap while the group waited for the sundaes to be made and said that he liked cash.

Haley, Brooke, and Peyton ate their cones slowly while the guys scarfed theirs down hastily to free their hands for the arcade.

After a moment, Peyton commented on how typical they were being by standing back while the guys had all the fun. Haley and Brooke looked at her and snorted.

"This is a fresh manicure, P Sawyer." Brooke had wriggled her hand in front of her.

"I've never understood the appeal of video games." Haley had scrunched up her nose. "Besides, I like just watching the guys."

Peyton finished her cone, shrugged, and joined the guys. As a tween, she had spent a decent amount of time in mall arcades waiting for Brooke to finish up in the multitude of dressing rooms she'd inhabited since childhood. It had been more interesting than just sitting around, at least.

"Dibs on next round." She said. Skillz and Jamie were playing a shooting game. Skillz looked at her sceptically and she raised her eyebrows at the look. "What, a girl can't like video games?"

"Just didn't think you would." Skillz shrugged. Jamie relinquished hold of the plastic gun and handed it to Peyton.

"Well prepare to get destroyed."

"Like I'm sure I've said before, baby they don't call me Skillz for nothin'."

Three minutes later, Peyton was smirking in satisfaction while Skillz sullenly stuck his gun back in the game holster. "This was my favourite way to kill time and avoid people at the mall back in the day."

"Wow. Gang's all here." Lucas said tersely, interrupting her gloating.

"Hey, what're you doing here?" Haley asked her best friend.

"I was just taking a break from writing." He shrugged.

"…I'm going to get more ice cream. Anyone else want anything?" Peyton cleared her throat, her smile unnaturally bright.

"You know, I think we're going to head back, actually." Haley said. "We can wait for you to order and then all ride back together"

"No, that's okay." Peyton said quickly.

Lucas cleared his throat. "I could use some ice cream; I can drive her back."

Peyton nodded and walked out. She waited for him to close the arcade door so she could meet his eyes levelly.

"I'm not trying to stalk you or anything." He said, stiff as a board, once the two had walked a safe distance away. "I just know that I've said a fair few things that I've regretted when I've been drunk, and I wanted to give you one chance to either re-say what you said, sober, or to apologize. Being drunk was a cop out and I'm done going in circles."

"I get what you mean and I appreciate that you're being reasonable about this." She swallowed and tried not to focus on her pounding heart. "And it was probably the liquor and my emotions that made me say that it wasn't good between us, physically, because you know that's not true… but I did mean it when I said I can't be with you."

"Okay." He said, and started to turn around.

"Luke, wait." She couldn't leave things the way they were. "I know you loved me, and you know I really did love you. But that was high school."

"You can't say that. If you hadn't said someday, or if I had just waited, or if you hadn't assumed I was dating Lindsay at that book signing, or if I had walked away from Lindsay when you asked me to- we'd be together. There are so many things that happened in the last two years that had they happened just _slightly_ differently, we'd probably be happily married by now." Lucas clenched his jaw; working furiously to keep his tone calm.

"Maybe so. But those situations belong in the same box as the world in which my mom left five minutes earlier to pick me up from school, where I had been paying more attention to the road that night I almost ran you over, or where you hadn't found me in the library during the school shooting; where Jake hadn't heard me say that I loved you in my sleep, or where you hadn't come with me that day to see if it was my dad's body they found." Peyton took his hand, unsurprised when he moved it out of her reach. "Lucas, we can't know what exactly would have happened if we had done something differently. It's all in the past. Whether it was a month ago or five years ago- it's all in the past and we can't change anything about it. We've got to accept our choices and have faith that they'll take us where we're meant to go. The world of maybes could have had us together, yeah. But that world also could have had us never meeting, or of a billion other scenarios of pain and loss. That world and everything it carried with it was destroyed when the choice was made."

"Those choices might be dead and gone but right now, you're actively choosing against me." He closed his eyes tightly. "You don't want me anymore, that's all there is to it."

"Lucas, look at me," Peyton felt her eyes water at how broken he sounded and his statement was false on such a deep level that she didn't know if she could ever make him understand. "I meant it all those times I said that you saved me. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you and that's a fact. You were the first boy I ever loved and you were the first boy I ever trusted enough to open myself up for, the first boy I ever fought like hell for, and the first boy I ever loved enough to let go for his own good. That will always be there between us. Always. We don't have a future but we'll always have our past. You rescued me, Lucas. And I will always love you for that."

"Why can't you love me now?" Lucas whispered, ever so vulnerable.

"Because I'm not the girl you loved and you're not the boy. We've grown up, Luke. And that isn't a bad thing. We're not who we were when we were together. So can't we please just love each other for what we had and move on with what's to come? We've been through too damn much to hate each other now, don't you think? I know I care about you too much to ever hate you."

He couldn't look at her, couldn't face the woman who had once been his whole world. He was silent and still for a moment before he just started walking away. She stood there watching his back, relieved that the ordeal was over and thinking that no matter what happened now, at least she would have said her piece. She watched as Lucas slid into his car and kick started the engine.

Lucas had to drive past her to get out of the area and he slowed down beside her just as she had turned to walk in the other direction. "You need a ride, right?"

"You know what? Don't worry about it. My place isn't far." She waved away his chivalry in an attempt to respect his feelings.

"I have to tell Haley that Nathan was sleeping around, you understand that, don't you?"

"Luke-!" She turned around, her insides freezing.

"It isn't because I'm angry, or hurt, or any of that. She's got to know. She deserves to know."

"Let Nathan tell her in his own way, on his own time." She pleaded.

But Lucas just rolled his window back up and sped off.

Peyton watched in bewilderment as Lucas drove away; wildly considering chasing after the car. Kicking off her heels and stuffing them in her bag, she ran like hell towards her house that luckily really wasn't far off.

She dialled Nathan's cell, but he didn't pick up. She swore loudly and dialled Brooke. "Where are you guys?"

"Back at Haley's with the guys. Deb's over too. Man, it's still weird seeing her with Skillz-"

"Uh huh that's nice, can you give the phone to Nathan please?"

"He's in the washroom, hon."

"It's important that I talk to him now."

"Why are you out of breath?"

_Because I'm running like hell. _"Brooke!"

"All right." Peyton heard knocking. "Nate, Peyton's on the phone for you. Says it's important." Muffled talking. "Ew, okay, walking away now. Peyton, he's busy okay? Do you want to tell me instead?"

Fuck. "No, never mind, I'm on my way there."

Peyton leapt into her car once she reached her driveway, stuck her shoes back on, and broke every speed limit between her place and Haley's- resulting in her getting pulled over three blocks away from her destination. She tried very hard not to swear her ass off at the cop, who lectured her on speeding in a residential area and sternly went on about how dangerous she was being. She accepted the ticket he handed her and gritted her teeth together as she slowly trudged the last few minutes to the house because she knew the cop was watching her.

She pulled against the curb, ran past Lucas's already parked car, and threw herself into the house. She prayed he hadn't said anything yet but as she stumbled into the room, she knew she was too late. Deb and Jamie were absent, but everyone else was gathered and staring alternately at the Scott brothers. Lucas was mid-rant.

"-there's no excuse for what he did. I don't know how long it's been going on, but I couldn't just stand here and let you all assume he was being a perfect chaste gentleman during this whole thing."

It was like watching a car crash from the sidewalk. She could see the impact before it occurred, could predict the damage, but she was absolutely helpless to change the outcome. Her face froze in horror as she saw the reactions of her friends; a slow transgression of judgement and disbelief. She looked around, uneasily waiting for their appalled gaze to land on her. But their eyes were stuck on Nathan and she wondered why she wasn't getting the same treatment.

Nathan, for his part, managed to look surprisingly calm. He swallowed and glanced around the room, meeting everyone in the eye before resting his gaze on Haley, who looked absolutely crushed. "Haley, I'm-"

"Is it true? Have you been sleeping with some woman this whole time?" Haley's words were a choked whisper of pain.

"Yes." He said. "But I want to make this perfectly clear to you- I have never cheated on you. I barely noticed other women when we were together and that is the honest truth. But after I got divorce papers… yes, I slept with another woman. Multiple times."

Peyton didn't know how he managed to say his piece with such composure. His words were precise, without stutter and he did not ramble in a desperate attempt to explain away his actions.

She was stunned at how well he was doing and her surprise blocked away full understanding of the situation at hand until Haley answered, her voice now chillingly cold, "You didn't even wait for the ink to dry, did you? What'd you do, just jump in bed with the first woman to smile at you?"

Peyton felt her stomach plummet down another level just as she thought it had already hit rock bottom. She suddenly realized that Lucas had told the room that Nathan had been screwing around, but he had left out that she was the one he had been sleeping with.

She looked at Lucas quickly and found that he was looking right back at her, his eyes speaking to her as clearly as they always seemed to. He knew that she realized his discretion and his eyes acknowledged that it was absolutely intentional and meant as a mercy for her. They were still so coated with hurt, but she understood that this act was meant as a silent way to tell her that he still cared about her.

Lucas's morals and ironclad loyalty to Haley meant that there was simply no way he could swallow keeping silent. He had only done so earlier because he just didn't think a one time slip up was worth destroying a six year relationship. Once Peyton had removed that misconception, he knew he had to tell his best friend. And a more understanding, less hurt Lucas would have made Nathan do it- but he was human, and reckless when in pain. His anger at Nathan clouded over any inclination he had to lessen the level of difficulty his brother had to deal with. He needed to tell Haley the truth and he tangibly wanted to hurt Nathan. But after Peyton's heartfelt words and with a decade's worth of love for the woman, Lucas couldn't bring himself to drag Peyton into the mess, even if she was equally involved. He knew his stupidity had driven Peyton to Nathan's arms and he simply didn't want to see her get ripped apart by the choices she had made when nursing the pain he had caused her. In his way, he was still trying to save her.

Peyton met Lucas's eyes with gratified understanding for a moment before she turned her gaze to Nathan, who could no longer sustain the strength to hold his head up high.

"I'm sorry, Hales." He swallowed; the straight unyielding stance he had carried himself in wilted under the penetrating, red-hot condemnatory expressions boring into him from the people closest to him in the world.

His eyes met Peyton's and the pain he was in was covered with a clear imploration; he raised his eyebrows just minutely as if to say _keep quiet and just go with it. _He had understood Lucas's act of compassion in leaving Peyton out of it and he had no desire to dirty her in this matter either.

Nathan closed his eyes and bowed to the wrath he had known would come ever since he kissed Peyton beside his gazebo. He knew he was going down but really, what good would it do to make Peyton go down with him? "I'm sorry for hurting you. For keeping this from all of you. I'm not going to try and deny anything. I will accept the consequences of my actions."

Peyton looked around at the malcontent on the faces around her, knowing she should feel grateful that she didn't have to endure it.

She took a shaky breath and did the only thing she could do.

Peyton walked firmly beside Nathan and securely wrapped her hand around his. "And so will I."

Lucas was still trying to save her but she knew it was long since time that she stood on her own feet. She did not need saving, not any more. Nathan had seen to that. And she would not let him go down in flames alone.

He didn't look at her and she didn't look at him, but she felt his grip tighten around her hand. "He didn't jump into bed with the first girl who smiled at him." She tried to keep her voice steady but couldn't completely keep the tremor out. "He jumped into bed with me."

xXx

_You, looked at me as you walked in the room; like the red sea, you split me open_

_All you did was save my life  
Pulled me out of that flat line  
Put the heartbeat back inside_

_All you did was get me through, I owe every breathe to you  
Heart and soul unparalyzed,_

**All you did was save my life**

* * *

AN: It's good this chapter ends on a good (ish) note because it'll likely be the last update for a while. I'm absolutely drowning in work xP. Believe me, I'd way rather be writing. Thanks for all your input and support.


	10. I So Hate Consequences

_And after all of my alibis desert me  
I just want to get by  
I had no idea where my head was at  
But if my heart says I'm sorry can we leave it at that?  
Because I just want for all of this to end_

And I so hate consequences  
And running from you is what my best defense is  
Oh God, don't make me face up to this  
Cause I know that I let you down  
And I don't want to deal with that

xXx

The moment of stunned silence seemed to stretch for hours. Peyton could feel her heart pounding faster, her eyes drinking in the speechless judgement drawn on the faces around her. She clung to Nathan's hand for dear life and pacified her inner panic by focusing on the familiar feel of his fingers against hers.

"What?" That was all anyone had managed to say. It came from Haley.

"They've been screwing." Lucas said quietly. He was subdued and his eyes were shut; he looked tortured and clearly uncomfortable with the way things were unfolding.

"We were seeing each other." Peyton corrected, her voice shaking. She could feel Nathan look at her in surprise.

"_What?" _Haley repeated.

"Since things are coming out, they might as well be told fully." Peyton admitted. "And the truth is, we were together. Much more than physically."

Lucas looked even more hurt, something that Peyton tried to ignore.

"I didn't want it to come out like this, but I knew it had to come out sometime." Nathan said, his voice stronger now than when he stood alone. "We were both hurt and abandoned, and we did the only thing that felt natural, the only thing that saved us."

"You self-righteous ass hole." Haley was crying.

"This was the guy you were sneaking around with?" Brooke managed to ask.

"I never want to see either of you again." Haley swiped angrily at her face and started to walk out of the room. "Get out. All of you. Just get out."

"Haley-" Lucas protested, while Brooke reached out for her hand.

"Get out." Haley hoarsely begged as she disappeared from view.

"You two should stay." Peyton said. "She'll need you."

"Peyton, I don't even know what to say to you right now." Brooke looked at her best friend with a puckered brow, muddled emotions mixing in her eyes.

"I do." Luke said. "Get out."

The moment Nathan and Peyton closed the door behind them, Nathan dropped his hand and Peyton felt her heart break again at just that one act.

"So. Everyone knows." Peyton stuffed her hurt feelings into a box and ignored them. Nathan's silence was unnerving to her so she continued, "Lucas told me he was going to tell Haley just before he drove off. I came as fast as I could."

"You probably shouldn't have said anything." Nathan said finally, staring ahead.

"Come to think of it, having sex with me is probably worse than just having sex with some random person." Peyton said, her form all casual indifference as the ice she protected herself with coated over her once more. "I guess I was trying to be noble, but it ended up just being another stupid thing to add to my list."

"Noble?" His tone was as even keeled as hers.

She opened her mouth to say that her morality wouldn't let him go down alone, but the cold lack of feeling that implied made the words die on her lips. A tangible hesitance filled the space between them, and then she looked at him and smiled wryly. "I love you, Nathan. Keeping silent was not a possibility."

She didn't wait for him to eviscerate her. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she started to walk back to her car.

Nathan's hand touched her elbow for just a second. "I'm grateful." He loosened his stiff upper lip for a moment and she felt from his voice that his words were deeply sincere. "And my anger… it doesn't mean I don't feel the same way."

"But that doesn't mean things have changed between us." Peyton stated knowingly, keen on stomping on any flicker of foolish hope that would spring in her.

"Peyton, you just jumped willingly into the lion's den with me in a situation where I was beyond saving just so you could suffer with me. I- that's…" He tried to articulate himself but words were never really his forte. "That changes things." He ran a hand through his hair tiredly. "Nothing can erase how you chose my brother. And one act can't make the hole in my chest go away. But of course this changes things."

Peyton wanted to kiss him or take his hand or fall into his chest. Instead, she smiled her sad little smile and continued walking to her car, allowing the subject to drop without closure because she knew there was nothing more he could say and nothing more she could do. "Shit's hit the fan, Nate. I'll see you around."

xXx

"_Why didn't you tell me?" _Brooke had demanded that evening, her voice completely betrayed. Peyton had been eating dinner by herself in the kitchen and looked up wearily.

"Because I knew you'd look at me like that."

"If you had told me earlier-"

"You'd still be looking at me like that." Peyton cut her off and put her dishes in the sink.

"They're Naley, Peyton."

"I'm not sorry."

xXx

"You've done a lot of crappy things Nathan, but what the hell." Mouth had interrupted him at the gym.

"I wouldn't have thought it'd be you doing this." Nathan said, putting his weights down.

"Lucas is catatonic and Skillz hasn't been around. And I knew someone had to say something to you about how horrible-"

"Cut the crap, Mouth. You don't need to guilt trip me, I know what I did."

"Haley hasn't stopped crying. She hasn't even left her room. Did you know that?" Mouth didn't care that he had never been all that close to Nathan or Haley; someone had to speak up to Nathan and he couldn't stand knowing how hurt Lucas was. "Luke has gone back to drinking himself black and your son's just confused to death because everyone's upset."

Nathan winced. He had tried to see Jamie a little over an hour ago but Deb hadn't let him in. His own mother didn't understand where he was coming from.

"I know. Everyone hates me. I'm banished." Nathan said sarcastically.

"It's more than that. You broke us. The group. The family. You broke us."

"If something I did could have done that, maybe it's time to focus more on your own damn lives." He snapped, glaring at his friend before he left the room.

xXx

She expected the anger, she expected the feelings of betrayal… but Peyton had not expected the black out that followed. It was as though Brooke didn't even know how to interact with her any more. Mia, who had taken to seeing Haley as a musical mentor, had responded to her emails and phone calls in matters of business only. Lucas and Haley were invisible to her. But more than that, Peyton felt entirely cut out from her old world.

Nathan found himself alienated from everyone in the same way he felt back when he ended up in a wheel chair. Unable to see his kid, exhausted from the judgemental lashings he received anytime he ran into any of his friends around town, he fell to locking himself in his house and getting drunk.

And on one of his few but necessary trips to the outside world for food and other necessities, he ran into Peyton who looked like she was on the same voyage. They were both in the liquor store and her basket was heavy with large bottles of heavy liquor. He eyed it sceptically and she looked at his beer and rum. Ashamed of their coping mechanism even though it was a shared one, they ducked their heads and moved in opposite directions.

She made it out of the store faster than he did but he waited for her to make it a few paces down the sidewalk before he exited behind her. His gut clenched up as he saw that Haley, with Lucas on her arm, was just getting out of her car directly beside where Peyton was headed.

Nathan was close enough to hear Haley hiss out _slut. _He was close enough to see Peyton stiffen in place for a moment before she ducked into her car. Haley and Lucas disappeared in the grocery store but Nathan's eyes were still on Peyton, and how her shoulders slumped inside her car and how her face broke once she thought no one could see her.

He clenched his jaw, wanting more than anything to climb into the passenger's seat and comfort her. Instead, he slipped into his own car and accepted that this painful isolation was his penance for two months of undeserved peace. He wanted to hold her but he knew that act would comfort him as much as it would her and he wasn't ready to feel anything yet. His chest was a block of ice and he did not want it to melt away, even if the emotion to be found underneath was a good one. He did not trust in emotions anymore; he clung to his numbness as the only way he could survive this.

xXx

Peyton bit down on her jaw and resisted the overwhelming urge to throw her lap top across the room upon receiving the next piece of cold correspondence Mia had sent her. Giving up on work as a distraction, she leaned back in her chair and automatically flinched as she remembered how she and Nathan had screwed right where she was sitting. Pushing herself off the chair, she grabbed her purse and slipped into Tric.

Throwing back a drop shot of something bittersweet, she leaned against the counter in front of her and talked to Owen, who was really the only person she knew in Tree Hill who wasn't entwined in the recent drama.

"How sad is it that you're my only friend right now?" She had laughed, fingering her glass.

"Peyton, you do realize we've never talked about anything straying from the topic of liquor, right?" Owen raised his eyebrows.

"I said it was sad."

"Listen, if you do need to talk-"

"She'll talk to me, thank you very much." Brooke sailed in next to Peyton and gave Owen a pointed _go away_ look.

Brooke casually shrugged at Peyton's look of confusion, "Hey, I don't know what guy you'll bond with next."

Peyton looked indignant, so Brooke quickly added, "I'm joking, hon. Look, I feel terrible for being so speechless earlier."

"What, because you didn't rip me a new one too?"

"Because you've obviously tortured yourself enough without all of us piling it on you and as your best friend, you should have been able to count on me to stand with you."

The blonde looked touched, but that emotion would soon fade.

"And I wish I could stand with you, Peyton. I really do. But why did it have to be Nathan?" Brooke genuinely wanted to understand. "He has a family with one of our closest friends."

"One of your closest friends." Peyton sullenly corrected.

"Peyton, please hear me out. I refuse to let anything get between our friendship again and I'm on your side no matter what you do, no matter who else is involved… But I'm not going to cheerlead you as you do something we both know is wrong. So I will absolutely not hold your past against you, I know you've paid for your mistakes already. But I need to know that you don't intend to go back to Nathan."

Peyton laughed hollowly.

"It's too screwed up. You know that."

"And you know that it wasn't just sex. You know that I really care about him."

"It's not healthy and it will destroy you knowing that it's destroying everything we know."

"Brooke, I don't want to be a martyr any more."

"Peyton, I don't want you to put yourself through another relationship that people will throw rocks at, that you'll have to hide; that will eat you alive."

So here it was. Peyton shut her eyes against the dizziness that was starting to invade her mind. She could be absolved from her tryst if she moved on and away from Nathan, if she left him alone. But that would be an absolution from everyone but Nate- and his was the only forgiveness she ached for.

"I know what I did." Peyton said at last. "And it healed me. Can you understand that? He healed me. If it's so Goddamn wrong then why did it feel more right than anything I've ever felt?"

"Tell me you didn't feel the exact same way about Lucas."

"That's-"

"Not in the last year. When he was with me. In high school. Tell me you didn't justify it in just the same way."

Peyton felt like she was punched in the gut with that statement. The guilt she had fought so aggressively came swimming back. A few hours ago, the black loneliness in her would have had her on her knees with gratitude for the company of her best friend but now she wasn't so sure Brooke could help her.

"You know I just want what's best for you." Brooke said quietly, taking Peyton's hand.

Peyton leaned into Brooke for a hug, all the while thinking _how can you help me if you don't see what I see? _

xXx

Days were passing. Things were not going well. The days were gloomy and isolated now and tensions were running near breaking point. Haley was angry at Brooke for not immediately kicking Peyton out of their house and saw that as a point of betrayal. The fact that she wasn't evicted didn't matter much to Peyton- she couldn't stand to be around anyone any more and had taken to crashing in the couch in her office. It was pathetic, and cowardly, but she was hiding in herself. She would drink at Tric, Owen would stare at her with concern but she would never say anything. All she did now was work and drink.

Nathan was startlingly functional in comparison. Four days into trying to drink himself black, he decided that the whole hiding thing was bull shit. He still slept in the same room in the same house as he had been doing for the last several weeks and his routine had changed only in the details. He still went on his morning runs, still worked out at the gym nearly every day. The main difference now was that when he swung by the place he used to live in with Haley, she no longer answered the door and when he tried to call his son, a click was his only response. The change gutted him but he had survived so much crap in his life that he knew he'd survive this. His way to cope involved keeping as much of his normal daily routine intact as possible. It was cloaked in denial, and avoidance. At night, when he couldn't distract himself with things to do, when there was nothing but an eight hour stretch of nothing but his thoughts ahead of him, Nathan turned to the bottle to make him unconscious and to cut off the dull ache in his chest before it could blow him apart.

xXx

_All of my escapes have been exhausted  
I thought I had a way but then I lost it  
And my resistance was once much stronger  
And I know I can't go on like this much longer_

xXx

People can't run and hide forever. Peyton had thrown out the bottles in her office and nipped her bar habit, throwing herself back into art instead. It had saved her when she was younger and she put her faith in it now.

She was curled into the back corner of a café, sketching absently and on her fifth coffee; doing anything to be anywhere but the state of mind she was in- and even in the musical ambiance of the area, she could hear the shouting that erupted outside of it. Someone had opened the door to leave and the muffled shouts became distinct words and recognizable voices.

"_You'll never see Jamie again. I won't let my son be raised by a man like you."_

"_You can't do that! Haley, I know I hurt you but he's _our _son and nothing can ever change that. You can't-"_

"_Don't try to tell me what I can't do. You have no right to even talk to me. I was a fool to ever believe you were anything but what you were on the surface." _

"_Hal-"_

"_Stop trying. I won't change my mind." _

And then Nathan had barged through the doors and straight into the washroom, staring ahead and ignoring the looks people were giving him. He walked straight past Peyton without seeing her; but she saw the despair painted on him and it was all she could do to stay where she was. She knew he would be even more upset to see that she had witnessed the blow out and she knew she should stay back and out of his life as they both sorted through their messes. They had gotten into this because they were together and logically she knew that the only way to fix it would be by doing it separately.

But when she saw him emerge from the bathroom a full ten minutes later, his face desperately blank, Peyton threw away her pre-made decision and took his hand as he walked by her.

He jumped back in surprise and pulled his hand away as he realized who grabbed him. As expected, he looked furious that she was there and eyes flashing warningly, he stormed out again.

Peyton felt the rage in his eyes but she knew that as always it was covering up a pain too deep to voice and, unable to bear the thought of either of them going through such pain alone any more, she ran after him.

She could see him already pulling his car off the side of the street several feet away but instead of giving it up as a lost cause, she jumped into her own car and followed him.

He arrived back at his summer house, his car pulled to a screeching halt inside his garage. She slammed into the driveway and ran around the house, knowing instinctively where he was headed. Sure enough, as she ran down the field that was his backyard, she saw a lone figure silhouetted against the dusk sitting on the gazebo up ahead.

She grabbed the bottle out of Nathan's hands and collapsed beside him.

"Why the fuck did you follow me?" He asked brokenly. The cold mask was gone, the man was crying. He swiped at his face in frustration and turned away from her. "I don't want you here." She knew he meant _I don't want you to see me like this. _

And so she tried to slip her arms around his solid frame- but he wouldn't let her. "Don't touch me."

"For God's sake Nathan, just let me fucking comfort you." Peyton exclaimed in exasperation.

"I ruined everything. Go away. Leave me alone. I don't need to be comforted." He was choking back sobs now and rambling hysterically, "I'm never going to see my kid again. The only good thing I ever brought into this world, and he's taken away from me because I'm such a Goddamn screw up." Peyton tried to put her hand on his arm but he ripped himself away. He stood up suddenly and punched one of the pillars of the gazebo with an anguished yell. Peyton winced and a pang of electric pain rippled through her in seeing him purposely hurting himself.

His fist bloody, Nathan leaned against the opposite end of the gazebo and sucked in a calming breath. "I want to be alone. Can't you see that?"

"I'm not leaving you here to drink yourself unconscious or burn the house down." Peyton said, surprising him with how calm she sounded.

"I'm pitching a gigantic fit and having a fucking break down, why are you so unnervingly composed?" Nathan demanded.

"Because a bunch of yelling and violence isn't going to scare me away."

"The sight of a grown man crying should've done it." Nathan answered bitterly.

"God Nate… all I want to do, all I've wanted to do, is to put my arms around you or take your hand or kiss you or anything at all to make this feeling go away but I know that nothing's going to do that and there's nothing I can say to help. I feel like crying myself just in knowing that." Peyton said. "But even if all I can do is sit here uselessly, I'm not leaving you. There was a time when you used to come to me for comfort, when you used to trust me enough to be vulnerable in front of me and I know I destroyed that but God, it doesn't have to be about trusting me or caring about me or needing me… it can just be about letting it out, about getting comfort somewhere. I don't care if we forget this ever happened, just let me in right now and let me help you."

"I can't." Nathan's voice was empty. "You can't even imagine how much I want to, it sickens me how much I want to, it sickens me how much I fucking need you but I can't, I won't let myself be that stupid again; you have to leave, right now."

"Nate, please."

"Get the hell out. I ruined everything and every second you're here makes it that much worse and I wish you never came here that day and I wish I had tried harder for Haley and I wish you and I never fucking happened-"

Shocking him silent, Peyton pressed her lips against his briefly.

He blinked at her in confusion.

"We're both hurting. And I think we've been through too much together to bull shit any more." Peyton smoothed away the angry tears that stuck to his cheek and took his hand firmly in hers. "You can say what you want, do what you want. I'm not leaving you."

When he pulled away again, she didn't know what else she could do… But then Nathan fell against her, his head buried in the crook of her neck, his fingers entwining in hers, and he sighed against her, "Peyton, I've missed you so much."

xXx

All this time I needed you, I needed you

When I got tired of running from you  
I stopped right there to catch my breath"  
And my sins, they watched me leave  
The love you felt for me was more than  
The love I'd wished for all this time  
And when the doors were closed  
I heard no I told so's  
I said the words I knew you knew  
Oh God, Oh God I needed you


End file.
